Preparing

Since I'm going to be using this as a TR in a week or so, I wanted to try this out on myself first. 

The word to be considered is "Preparing." For me, it denotes a getting ready for something, planning and executing things necessary to accomplish something --- like cooking Thanksgiving dinner, the season of advent and all the commotion of buying gifts, trimming trees, hosting parties and baking cookies for Christmas.

Who was involved when I was feeling a sense of preparing?  Mama for the most part but also me at various times. Buying certain items of food (a turkey, a ham, apples, grapes, celery and miniature marshmallow, polishing the silver and making sure the linen tablecloth was spotless and perfectly ironed were Mama's traditions. Mine followed some of them although my tablecloth wasn't white linen.

What image comes to mind about feeling the sense of preparing?  Chopping apples and the other ingredients for the salad, soaking the Christmas ham, stuffing the turkey for Thanksgiving, having the house smell of spices and seasoning, not to mention the scent of cedar from the fresh tree every year.

Where does this come from and where is it found in society?  It comes from family tradition and also from everything from Saturday Evening Post covers to contemporary advertising.  We are programmed to prepare for an ideal celebration with all the proper accoutrements. Anything less is second-best, a failure and may possibly warp our children and grandchildren for life.

When does this come up in the Bible, lives of saints, hymns, etc?  The idea of preparing shows up for me in the story of the Wedding at Canaan. The bridegroom's family forgot or failed to secure enough wine for all the guests and so were left in the embarasssing situation of not having enough to go around. Preparing also shows up in Isaiah, especially the parts we hear during Advent, itself a season of preparing as is the season of Lent. Perhaps preparing for Christmas or Thanksgiving Day aren't on the same plane as celebrating Advent or moving through Lent, but still, preparing is a very important component.

Why is this manifest in our lives?  I look to tradition -- family, faith and societal -- to give structure and meaning to life. Preparing for something, like the steps of cooking Thanksgiving Dinner or getting ready for Christmas, gives a sense of being part of a community activity even if the communal activity takes place only in the home. Celebrating Advent, itself a spiritual preparing for the Feast of the Nativity, encourages us to think more deeply than what to get Aunt Mabel or whether the family will all be comfortable at dinner if we invite Susie's boyfriend with the earring and tattoos that definitely mark him as an 'outsider'. As preparing for Christmas is an external event, so Advent is preparing in an internal way.

How might God redeem any negatives in this?  I think that instead of God redeeming any negatives, I need to remember to put God back in to the preparing process.

What have I learned for the next time I feel a sense of preparing?  I need to remember to do the important preparing -- the internal preparation -- even if the more visible, external preparing doesn't get done.