Epiphany Lessons

On Epiphany night, I walked in from one of the more tiring days I've had at work, a day of intensive final work on the departmental assessment document. This document clocked in at almost 80 pages, and it involved creating 2 charts of my own, and incorporating 16 charts from faculty members, along with revisions and creating an introduction and conclusion. Exhausting. I also had to hire a Psychology adjunct after one of the Psych adjuncts had a family emergency arise, which meant he couldn't teach the class that starts next week.

Suffice it to say, I was bone tired when I walked in from work. We ate dinner together, and I kept my spouse company in the study until we decided to call it a day and watch television.

I went to the living room to plug in the tree. I didn't realize it wasn't there until I leaned over to get the plug, and had one of those discombobulating moments. My first irrational thought: "Someone stole our tree!" Then my rational mind kicked in: my spouse had simply undecorated the house.

Again and again, from a variety of places, the Advent message pops up. Stay awake! Keep watch! You don't know the day and the hour! Again and again, I let life's vicissitudes swamp my spiritual boat.

I'm trying to adopt a simple mind frame of gratitude for these Holy Spirit nudges. I'm trying not to beat up on myself for continuing to slip away from my fully-aware state. I'm trying to remember to keep watch, because the Christmas story reminds us that we never know where God will appear, but the Bible and the lives of the faithful show us again and again that God will appear where we least expect to find God.

Perhaps God will appear even in the modern office building where we slave away on endless revisions of endless documents, cursing the copy machine and drinking bad coffee.