Getting ready for guests is something that I both enjoy and rant about, not always in the same breath but usually when the preparation has taken longer than anticipated. It seems like such a simple thing when I send out the Evite but then I notice that the house and the yard are more neglected than I thought, the refrigerator is not only empty but dirty, and someone else ate that last bit of Ben and Jerry's ice cream that I expected to be there as a frazzled-hostess treat!

Wayne and I, like many of you who signed up to bring potluck offerings, have been busy this weekend getting ready to welcome to the rectory tonight at 5:00 an inclusion-committee-dinner to honor and celebrate those who have been members at St. Thomas' for three years or more. We have bathed the puppies, sent Frieda to the doggy spa for a full-body grooming and pedicure, cleaned and combed the cats, all in giddy preparation to welcome you and hear about your life's most recent adventures. The rectory will also be wrapping her arms around two additional parish events in the weeks to come. On December 19th, the staff is hosting a Christmas party in appreciation for the vestry. And then the entire St. Thomas' parish membership will soon be receiving an invitation to a 12th Night party at the rectory - a new yearly tradition we are establishing to mark the liturgical end of the Christmas season starting in January 2007.

However hectic it can sometimes be to welcome guests, each time I safely make it down the long flights of rectory stairs in a Pavlovian response to the doorbell, frustration gives way to equal parts of excitement about who has arrived and how long has it been since I've held their gaze, wallowed in their stories, or enjoyed the comfort of silence shared with someone who knows your heart. Wayne and I love to use our best dishes and well-worn placemats as we share the home you've graciously provided for us to live. I know it's been a good evening when there are stumps of candles left on the dining room table the next morning and the dishes are poised statue-like, waiting their dive into the dishwasher. Hospitality, I am again reminded, is one of the best gifts we can ever give one another.

As Advent starts today, so does our Christian year. I'm always sort of glad that it sneaks up on us right after Thanksgiving. As our liturgical New Year's, today is a little like January 1st, without all the party-mess and fatigue. And yet our everyday experiences of the demands and rewards involved in authentic hospitality should remind us that Advent itself requires the familiar disciplines of preparation if we are to have our house in order and be able to celebrate the arrival of Christ in the midst of our harried and hurried worlds of work and home.

I'd like to think the rectory would be extra spiffy if Mary and Joseph literally arrived sometime soon with new Baby Jesus in tow. And yet the cooking and cleaning are the easy parts of hospitality, whether for Jesus or our neighbor. It is much more challenging to ready ourselves to welcome our guests just as they are, rather than as we expect them to be. Sometimes we must greet guests who arrive bearing sorrow on their shoulders, who are preoccupied with life's demands, who come with stories we didn't expect, bearing gifts we know we don't deserve.