Greeting

Today’s #AdventWord is #Greeting

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’Tis the season for a flurry of Christmas cards.

I haven’t had the emotional energy for them this year. As they have arrived, the envelopes have sat, unopened, on some random surface for a couple of days; before being opened, possibly unread, and left lying on the sofa rather than displayed on a book shelf, mantlepiece or wall. It is not that I am ungrateful, but that I lack the energy to care—not as a general disposition, but as a current circumstance. Indeed, every card has drained me further.

The Christmas story is full of greetings. Some, like that between Mary and Elizabeth, are full of joy. Other times, the greeting itself is troubling.

True greeting never demands reciprocation, for to demand reciprocation demotes our words to mere announcement of our presence.

So, greet others this Christmas, but be sensitive to how you find them. That will take your greeting across the threshold into encounter—perhaps even an encounter that will transform both you and them.