The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Canon for Ministry Formation and Transitions
Show me your ways, O Lord,
and teach me your paths.
Psalm 25:3
The smell of pine greets me in the early morning as I come downstairs to prepare my tea. The Christmas tree is up, but unadorned. I had thought we would get the lights up yesterday, but that didn’t happen. Now I scan a mental calendar of the week ahead and wonder when we can possibly get it decorated. Where is the window? I have a vague sense that it may never happen, that we will reach Christmas without decorated tree or crèche or stockings hung with care.
I see the cars driving around town with trees lashed to the roofs and think of other households getting ready and wonder if they have it more together than I do. Most likely. But then it occurs to me that in the preparation itself I am lured onto a lesser path. The tree is meant to be a signpost, not the culmination. The call of John the Baptist, the call of Isaiah, is not to an individual or a household but to a people. This is a much bigger deal than I can imagine.
How do we, the people of God, make ready the way for Christ?
In prayer each morning I prepare myself as best I can to meet the day. But this day I hear the invitation into the immeasurable, so I pray to be shown the way. I need God to teach me how.