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We’re at that time of year when we keep lists pretty close at hand – lists of gifts we’d like to buy (at the best price we can find!), lists of groceries to get for holiday treats, lists of special Advent and Christmas events we want to attend.

But there is a different kind of Christmas list someone told me about, that I’d like to pass along to you. You may already be familiar with it – it’s a Christmas list from “The Advent Conspiracy,” a resource developed by a network of local churches to help Christians find ways to weave more true meaning into their holiday observances.

In a few short weeks it will begin to look a lot like Christmas. What there’s never been before is what’s revealed in Jesus: the news that God has shaped his whole life to be in relationship with us, and that he’s chosen to draw us into that relationship not by force, not by guilt,not by threat, not by necessity, but by beauty, by joy, by the winsome simplicity and vulnerability and magnetism of a tiny child.

One of my favorite elements of the Thanksgiving story is the surprise that the Pilgrims must have felt when 90-plus Native Americans showed up to share in that “first Thanksgiving meal.” The handful of Native Americans who had worked with the Pilgrims through the spring and summer, teaching them to plant crops that would thrive in the soil of this continent, had interpreted the invitation by the Pilgrims to join in a special meal, as an invitation to a “potlatch.” They knew what that was – a time for the community to gather in fellowship, thanksgiving and feasting.

On my night stand are still three acorns. They are momentos of an afternoon walk with our grandson, through the parsonage back yard to Fishel Park. We’d just read a board book about busy squirrels storing up food for the winter, and sure enough, as we walked we saw squirrels scurrying around the edge of the yard, and felt acorns crunching under our feet. So, of course, it became essential to collect our own little batch of acorns.

It had been a full, good week. Jim and I had been at a (wonderful) preaching conference Sunday until late, late, Thursday night, and then woke up early and eagerly Friday morning to be with our daughter and son-in-law as their second child was born.

By Saturday morning, as I prepared to come to church for a portion of the special weekend adult education presentation, I was thinking, “Boy, this Ched Myers will have to be really good to even make a dent in my consciousness.”

I guess he was good – my consciousness got “dented.”

Well, here we are in October, the month of homecomings and Halloween. Somewhat lost at times is World Communion Sunday. Unlike homecoming, where we are reminded how much older we are and hopefully wiser; or Halloween, which simply leaves empty spaces in teeth that use to have fillings; World Communion Sunday reminds us that we all belong to each other globally. In Christ the old has past, the new has come, and packaged with that newness is awareness that in Christ we all belong to each other. The old ways of defining ourselves sexually or socially are now transformed.

I had to admit, as I got ready for our church’s first annual Day of Service last Saturday morning, that I wasn’t quite as psyched for it as I thought I would be. Maybe it was the overcast sky and the drizzle, or the awareness in the back of my mind that I would need to get spruced up right afterward for wedding later in the day, but I was sort of hoping, deep down, that I would hear a crack of thunder to let me know our outdoor service project was canceled for the day.

Well Rally Day is around the corner. Things are starting up. You can almost hear the voice over the P.A. announce “Start Your Engines.” Homecoming, that event colleges and high schools celebrate, and Rally Day, which church‘s mark, perhaps is not so much coming home to a place, but rather more to a Presence. Home is not only where we come from or where we are going; it’s more the present and a Presence. We are at home when we are in fellowship. We are at home when we are with, Another, who makes everyplace and every time our place.

We had, again on Sunday, some wonderful gifts of music to frame our worship experience. There was the clear, poignant, prayer-in-song given by a soloist, and the familiar and powerful hymn-of-testimony shared by a quartet. The music from Sunday so often keeps “singing” to me, replaying in my mind, on Monday mornings – a lovely, and uplifting, start to the week.

Because this church is such a fun place to be, Jim and I haven’t spent quite as much time at the parsonage (unpacking), as we might have. The few boxes remaining in rooms here and there, and the storeroom begging to be organized, are daily reminders that we are in “transition” – still in a process of fully moving from one place in life to another.

Someone once said that the two most important days in a person’s life are the days on which she was born and the day on which she discovers why she was born.
I would like to add moving as a third important day to that list.

Saying goodbye was so difficult: after just four days, we felt as though we were lifelong friends. Certainly, we had shared a great deal in a short time. We spent the morning talking with the UPAVIM Board about our purpose, vision and mission statements, and deepened our understanding of what our relationship means for each of us, and how it might develop in the future into practical outworkings that "promote quality and dignity of life: in BOTH our communities".