Advent. Visit

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The Advent story in scripture is mostly about visits. In Matthew the angel visits Joseph to reassure him about Mary’s child. In Luke the angel comes to Zechariah to tell him about Elizabeth’s child. Then it’s off to see Mary to let her know her part in God’s purposes. Then Mary goes to visit Elizabeth.

There’s lot of visiting.

In churchy settings we use the word “visitation” to describe encounters with the divine and thus bracket these events off from ordinary life.

That’s a shame. What if, instead of extraordinary, we thought of encounters with the divine as part of everyday life? What if we walked through life expected to encounter the holy?

My Monday has included a series of visits, and none of them felt like a “visitation” in the moment. Yet, that’s more about the way I’ve moved through the day than the way God has moved through it.

That is to say, I think there have been a few holy moments in this perfectly ordinary day that began with a visit to my neighborhood coffee shop on the way to the DMV.

There was nothing holy about the DMV except perhaps for the way that entering a circle of hell gives one appreciation for almost any other place one could visit.

But the stop at the coffee shop was, while perfectly ordinary, full of grace embodied in the two baristas, Claudia and Maria, who greeted me this morning. People who bring joy and light to perfectly ordinary encounters point to the common light from which we all spring forth. It’s all too easy to forget that and take it for granted, but I’m pretty sure my trip to the coffee shop was a visitation.