Oh, SNAP!
Have you ever wondered where that expression came from? I am here to tell you.
Around Thanksgiving time, I let my family know that I got a new mouse pad. I was talking about the close-cell foam square for the mouse on my computer. They heard place to inhabit. I told them that the pad included a sailboat and a lighthouse. I was talking about the tactile picture. They heard places to inhabit.
When everyone and my brothers showed up at the door, I was thinking the weekend; they were thinking winter quarters. When I first heard everyone at the door, I thought family. They meant family reunion, to the fifth and sixth, maybe the seventh generation. When I told them that I was cooking, I thought Thanksgiving dinner. They thought short order cook at all hours of the day and night. When I asked about a cracker stuffing, I was speaking of the turkey. They heard food eating contest. It’s time to talk about hospitality and being a good guest. (SNAP!)
(Oh, SNAP!) I was initially excited to be with my family and overjoyed to have adequate space for everyone. It has been a long time. You know, with COVID, nobody was going anywhere, and so usual mouse transit was greatly curtailed. Whoever happened to be in any one place tended to stay in that place. (Sounds like physics, doesn’t it?) (SNAP!) But now that the masks are off and people are moving around, my family is on the move also. Hence the popular populous movement at Thanksgiving. I thought it would be fun to play host to them all, after all, I have been welcomed in their homes, but I was unprepared for the events as they were revealed.
As I said, I was excited as my family came through the door, but then Auntie Pain-in-the… arrived with my cousins (we’ve never been close) and their kits and their kits and their kits. Grandma and Grandpa came next, and great grandma and grandpa, and great-great grandma and grandpa. The rest of my aunts and uncles trundled themselves over the threshold and then there was my own family with the kits and grand-kits and great-grand-kits. Soon my lodging space was so overcrowded that emergency housing was needed. (SNAP!) We tried to be inconspicuous, but the shelving in the cupboard where the peanut butter is kept got to be too much of a temptation for some of the more adventurous. (SNAP!) Suddenly it seemed there was family everywhere.
Peter (not the disciple) has been pretty understanding, but the peanut butter-thing initiated reprisals. Ever since then, he has been quietly moving some of the more raucous members of my family into the backyard where an owl seems to be lingering on his/her/their journey to wherever owls go for the winter. They(?) seem to be particularly plump, and Peter is not saying anything about it.
Well, it has now been 21 days since everyone arrived and you know what that means. Mice do it like bunnies only more quickly. What started out to be a weekend has turned into a population bomb of nightmarish proportions (SNAP!), and so I have tried to be gentle when I tell der folken that it is time to be moving on (SNAP!).
Finally, I have been forced to act more aggressively. I have put out the spring-loaded wooden eviction pallets (SNAP!) but that hasn’t really made an impression on them. Thanksgiving was one thing, but Christmas is fast arriving, and I cannot even fathom the number of presents I will have to procure. By New Year there will be two new generations of relatives to deal with! Oh, (SNAP! SNAP-SNAP-SNAP) If something doesn’t happen soon, I will be evicted with everybody else (SNAP!) and with extreme prejudice. (Now there is a P word I really do not want to experience under any circumstance, let alone the extreme variety.) (SNAP!)
Gracious hospitality is one thing, but don’t you think that guests need to be gracious too? Shouldn’t guests know when it is time to move on?
I feel like I should sign this, “Unprepared and impatient in Baraboo”.
Nickey is a
little beside himself these days, and so I thought I might add a few words for
him.
Advent is a time of preparation and waiting. We hear, “Prepare the way. Make straight the highway. Cry out in the wilderness. Bear witness to the one who is coming who is greater.”
It is not enough to want to be hospitable in the world today. Hospitality needs a plan; it requires preparation. Especially in these wilderness days, we need to be voices of welcome with enough to feed and comfortably house. We need to make space at the table for those God sends us. We need to recognize them and give them a voice in the conversations that determine what happens in the future. And then, we need to find ways for each of them to participate in the mission and ministry we share.
Further, we need to know our personal boundaries and our limitations. No one of us is able to care for the whole world. Only God can do that, and, at that, we continue to know God as Father (Creator, or maybe Divine progenitor), Son (Jesus, God’s word revealed in the person of Jesus), and Holy Spirit (that ineffable, invisible, love, mercy, and forgiveness which empowers and vivifies us giving hope). But in our Lutheran understanding of who God is, we state God’s prepared plan for humanity as, “Through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God intends that all should be saved.”
We do not know whether all people will be saved, but that is not our concern. Our concern is to treat those whom we meet as if they are saved. There are times when I would like to make exceptions, but that is not my place.
Nickey wanted to be the host with the most, but he was not adequately prepared for the enormity of his welcome. Unfortunately, fifteen (SNAP!), sixteen of his relatives have entered the great food chain in my yard. (Disclaimer: No mice were tortured, poisoned, nor died from any other form of slow death during the writing of this article, but our sojourning owl remains very happy.)
In this advent season,
· Prepare (find an issue that concerns
you and research it)
· Make straight the highway (propose
ways of resolution to your issue)
· Cry out in the wilderness (be an
advocate for those affected by your issue)
· Bear witness (testify, point, to the
One who makes us one).
God’s blessings in this Advent time,
Peter, not
the biblical disciple but a disciple just the same
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