Orientation.

Orientation.

You're entering a new phase of your schooling and you have new student orientation. You take a new job and within the first few days you have some sort of orientation. You go away on a retreat of some sort and near the beginning of the time you are given an overview of the time away. An orientation. You turn on a new computer or phone. There are screens embedded in the startup that show you how to navigate around in your new machine. Orientation. You create a document on your new computer. As you get ready to print your document, you can pick what direction you want the paper to print. Portrait or Landscape. Page orientation.

It's not a word that we use a lot in our everyday living, but it clearly runs in the background of life events and even daily living. Orientation.

I think it's happening more than we know. I think it could happen more than we think it could.

During most of the last 5 years that I have been sharing thoughts on BuyTheField, around this time of year, I have paused to mention the Liturgical Calendar, the calendar that orients life less around days of the week, holidays and the 12 months and more around the rhythm of the life of the Trinity. Anticipating the arrival of Jesus as a baby. Celebrating His arrival. Anticipating the death and resurrection of Jesus. Celebrating His resurrection. Anticipating the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Celebrating His continued presence. Living the ordinary days of life oriented around these cosmic realities.

The rhythm of the Liturgical Calendar began this past weekend. The first weekend of Advent. There are four weeks of Advent. That word means coming. In Advent we are preparing and waiting for the coming of Jesus as a baby. This is the beginning of the liturgical year. So, Happy New Year:) Yes, of course, He has already been born, but in the repeated rhythm of the liturgical year we are invited to orient again around the astounding wonder that God came to earth as a baby. A baby. The infinite God had a beginning on the earth, just like us. And then lived the most extraordinary life ever lived. I can't possibly even take in what that fully means.

So this year. Advent. What am I thinking?

Orientation.

This is so kind of the Lord to you and I, if we will but receive it. Advent is a yearly orientation. We've been living in the guts of our real lives day in and day out. Fun moments. Frustrating relationships. Bitter moments of fear and hurt. Pleasureful moments of the goodness of God. You keep listing for you. And then, abruptly even, Advent invites you to orient again around the way, the truth and the life. Orient again around what most pulsates in your inner woman and inner man when all the other muck of sin and selfishness is cut through. YOU HUNGER FOR YOUR SAVIOR. Yes. That IS it. Everything else is a diversion. It is all so miserably pathetic in its predictable numbing over the course of a years days. Advent invites breaking hard to a stop and then proceed two miles an hour so you can catch glimpses of your self being bathed in the birth of a Savior.

Welcome to Orientation month. Four weeks to orient again. Focus again. Grieve again. Look again. Speak again. Slow again. Love again. Pour out your heart again. Oh let it be dear friend. Meet me at orientation this month. You are invited.

What are you invited to at this orientation?

Well.....

There's more.

Yes. That IS it.

Advent is telling us.

There's more.