Advent Advent III.i

Change is an event. Transition is the process.

I heard that in a staff training today, and it is lingering. I suppose it is mostly true that I am always sliding between transitions, pockmarked by the changes they are processing. That might just be life's story actually. And if we are eager for change to be for the good, then apparently we do things like communicate and include and give each other tools through the transition (on each side of the change) that equip us for the new tasks or ways or requirements the change has brought.

I think I was supposed to be using this information to manage some of the change in my work place. At the time, I was filtering it mostly through my own lens of family change we are living. It was helpful.

Tonight though, I am thoughtful about how Jesus showing up - in history, in our lives, each Christmas - is The Change, and that Advent is the process that preceeds the change, and then epiphany and the weeks that follow (or maybe the years that follow?) the process that follows the change. But the process, that process has to be full of communication and inclusion and other tools for us to experience The Change as Good.

Huh. I wonder.

Jesus showing up matters. It is a change. The Change. It has been for me, and it is irrefutable that it has been for the whole planet. Whether or not we have experienced that change as Good, well that just may depend on the process, on the transition.

For me, the change is Good. It is a relentless reminder that all things work for Good. Even the parts that are difficult and awful.

So praise be for being able to re-read Psalm 121 and remember that I am not left on my own through the process.  The Lord is watching my coming and my going.

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.