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Saturday, December 29, 2007 Grace to you and peace from God our Maker When we were first married, we decided to have a New Year’s Eve party for parishioners. It was great! Three couples came over, and we played “fictionary” and other games. The next year, we decided to do it again. No one but “Joe” (not his real name) showed up. He was a single man, 20 years old, with some stroke-like symptoms. Joe was a farm boy, without the business skills to run the farm in later years. He probably would work with his married older brother for years to come. Joe was easy to be with. He was happy. He never complained; he ate what was put before him; he participated in everything. When I saw Marianne melting margarine to put it on the popcorn, I rushed to stop her. “You can’t use margarine! Joe is a dairy farmer!” Marianne wasn’t convinced, and asked Joe if she could use margarine. He said, “sure!” Then he added that he guessed he’d never had margarine before. It was awkward. Marianne had made the house look beautiful and served delicious snacks. It was fine to have Joe over, but we were hoping for more people. Afterwards, Marianne was bummed. And that’s the feeling she remembers. But just lately, I looked at the pictures of that evening. They show Joe being himself. But they also show Marianne with a truly genuine smile as she prepared food for our honored guest. Looking at the pictures, you don’t see the aftermath of being disappointed. All you see is a beautiful house and smiling people. Sometimes we miss the blessings because we expect something different. Emmanuel, God-with-us, was present in the person of Joe. Actually, the Christmas story is about persons like Joe. It is about the lonely finding friendship. It is about the handicapped finding welcome. It is about the strange reversal of expectation, when Joseph decides to divorce Mary and then with the intervention of a dream, changing his mind. It is about an unplanned pregnancy, and lots of other unplanned things, turning out to be greater blessings that we could have imagined. God, help us perceive your presence, and save us from our expectations! Jim Cotter
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