The season between Advent/Christmas and New Year’s seems to be made for self-reflection. I particularly find this time to be daunting–trying to take stock of what happened and prepare myself for what will happen. Every year for the last several, one question has been hanging over my head. Will this be the year that I find what I have been looking for professionally? I seem to be focused on one aspect of the future. What will I be given and what will I achieve? Perhaps the time has come to flip that question on its head and ask what will I give and what will be achieved through me.
I can’t ever seem to get through the Christmas story without wondering about the innkeeper who turned a pregnant woman away and forced her to take refuge in a stable. While I can sympathize with the idea of an innkeeper being overwhelmed and stressed out by an abundance of guest (none who had made reservations through Expedia…), I always found it disconcerting that Mary and Joseph were made to bed down with sheep and cows and camels and the like. But this year, I read the Christmas story a little differently.
Instead of thinking poorly about that innkeeper, I began to wonder about the lengths to which he or she may have gone to come up with a solution. Perhaps instead of being dismissive, the innkeeper truly felt poorly and called upon to do the best he could. Surely it would have been an inconvenience to have strangers disturbing the animals and getting in the way. Likely the innkeeper could have suspected that he would have been stiffed out of payment. But in truly hospitable fashion, he or she did what no others had done before, they stopped asking what they would be given and asked instead how they could give…even when they had no room left to give.
As the innkeeper stopped worrying about what he would get from the deal, or what could be achieved from the inconvenience, the greatest event was achieved through their open-ness. I believe that the notion of having room in the inn is not only literal but metaphorical. From the very beginning, change came into the world through the idea of being open to saying yes. Door and hearts were opened to those in need.
As I think about how much I have been given in my forty-nine years, I marvel at my good fortune. Unlike Mary, I have several places to sleep in comfort and instead of being a stranger in a strange land, I am surrounded by friends and family whose very presence makes it easier to welcome each new year.
So my wish for 2018 is that I am given the opportunity to be like that innkeeper and offer something that will let someone else achieve something great. I will give what I can, and try to think less about what will I be given. I will try to bring light into the darkness and not ask when my lamp will be refilled. And I will be thankful for this journey and the lessons that this blog has provided.
May the new year bring you light, love and an understanding that we can all be vessels for achievement.
What a beautiful way to read the inn keeper’s reaction. It was quite possibly not an outright rejection, but the very best he could do, and possibly at some inconvenience. We cannot know that for sure but surely it is an equally acceptable choice. I believe that by the very fact of imagining and believing this decision on the part of the Inn keeper –that the writer will give this same gift in the coming year. Maybe he already has in many ways. I suspect so ,or he would not have thought of this very wonderful solution to the Innkeeper’s dilemma. As the year progresses I pray and believe these thoughts will be fulfilled. He has given us some wonderful openings for choices of “change” in these blogs of the year 2017. I pray that a wonderful year awaits. Thank you.