I have been visiting shut-ins for the holidays, as have many pastors.  And not just pastors.  At almost every stop, I run into someone else from the church there also with a poinsettia.

In every other church where I have been a member or pastor, the visitors showed up after Christmas with the poinsettias they had taken from the sanctuary on Christmas Eve.  While this is nice, I find it doubly nice that here our homebound members get flowers in time to enjoy them for the holidays.  Kind of like giving our first fruits instead of our leftovers.

But more important than the flowers is our gift of time.  There are so many lonely people who just need to connect with someone.

Yesterday when I was in a nursing home visiting a member, his roommate kept interrupting with stories about his life.  And the man I was visiting would quietly close his eyes and listen and wait.  I was getting impatient for his sake.  I was there to visit this man and bring him communion.  And this other man kept interrupting us.

The roommate needed to tell his story.  He needed someone to acknowledge his life.  And the stories were interesting.  This man has been around the world twice.

As I was leaving he stopped me to thank me for listening.  Of course I felt a little guilty because inside I hadn't been as patient as he thought I had been. But there were tears in his eyes and a smile on his face.  Perhaps those few grudging moments were the most important gift I will give this Christmas.

And it isn't just the shut-ins and nursing-home patients.  We all need to be listened to.  In the hustle and bustle of gift buying, sometimes we run out of this gift.  We are much too busy to listen.

My advice, not from wisdom, but from recent experience is to slow down.  Give each other the gift of time.  We all need someone to listen.

And if sometimes it seems like no one is listening to you, God has all the time in the world.

Lord,
We pray all the time for you to hear us, and you do.  For that we give thanks.  May we hear the voices and the hearts of all who are trying to get us to listen.
Amen.