Noticings – December 14, 2022

NOTICINGS…

December 14, 2022

I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find it. I went through my desk drawers about 4 times. I went through the trash can and the recycling bin beside my desk. I emptied my bag of music cables and cords, and cleared away some of the clutter that had accumulated but it just wasn’t there. I even tore apart the sofa bed but to no avail. It was a total mystery. The item I was searching for was the remote control for my electric fireplace that warms my basement music room/office at home.Have you ever lost a remote control? It’s so frustrating, and maddening. I started to obsess about finding it because it just didn’t make sense that it was missing. I hadn’t used it since last winter, of course, but there was no reason for it not to be in that room. But it wasn’t. (Well, actually it was!) The hunt went on for days, and I even texted my daughter to see if she had inadvertently packed it up with her things when she moved out in the spring. Sadly, no.

The fireplace was still fully functional, so I wasn’t freezing to death. But I also wasn’t enjoying walking across the room and bending down to manually turn it on and off and regulate the heat. (My life is so hard!) The happy ending is that what once was lost now is found! Hallelujah! I’m embarrassed to say that it was on my desk the whole time. It had slipped underneath the stand that holds up my computer monitor. I thought it was solid under there. Wrong. I felt both foolish and elated at the same time.

It occurred to me that my remote control quest taught me a great Advent lesson. I felt like something was missing, and I wanted very passionately for it to be present. It was actually already there, right under my nose the whole time, but I couldn’t perceive it yet. I knew that when it finally came into view that my life would feel better! And now that I’ve found it I feel like I will always cherish it and never let it slip from my grasp again – yet I suspect that in time I’ll become lackadaisical about it and its presence may elude me again (and again). Perhaps after this experience I’ll remember where to seek it out so I can embrace it more quickly and not suffer its absence so much. An Advent lesson, indeed!

I never thought my fireplace remote control would become a symbol for the coming of the light of the world! The Lord works in mysterious ways.

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Shalom,
Rev. Larry