I’m not the best little homemaker in the country.   I seem to have a very high threshold for clutter.  Although I keep my home clean, there may be (and usually are) stacks of papers or unfinished projects or notebooks filled with books I’m editing on tables and chairs and even a few in baskets on the floor.   For that reason, before anyone enters the house, I have to clean, clear the clutter, sweep out the corners where dirt seems to collect,  use a feather dust to get rid of cobwebs on the ceiling.

This is what preachers do: we tell a story, then say something like, “This reminds me of why we celebrate Advent.”

For many years, George and I hosted a Christmas open house for church members and neighbors and, yes, I had to plan and clean and cook until the time came and we opened the door to our guests.

This reminds me of why we celebrate Advent.  Christmas doesn’t start with the hanging of the greens and shopping.  That’s Advent, the period of preparation.  Christmas starts withthe birth of the Savior, when the prophesy comes to pass and the miracle is shared, but even with the joy of the season, there is a reason for Advent, those days before Christmas.

Exactly as I prepared for our guests weeks before we welcomed them, Advent is the time we prepare ourselves for the new birth, the light, the appearance of God made human.  And, yes, I do this before He arrives because I have clutter in my brain and unpleasantness lurking in the corners of my soul and cobwebs covering my often unused commitment which makes me less able to receive God’s gift to us.

What is the clutter in my mind? Can I admit to the racism I attempt to pretend doesn’t exist there?  What about my certainty that my beliefs are the only true beliefs–the clutter I hide behind a smile?  What about that ugliness hiding in the corners of my mind, jealousy and pettiness?  And my uncertain and wavering commitment to love and spread the good news?  I need to sweep all those away before the arrival of our Savior so I can welcome Him with open arms.

Preparation:  this is why we celebrate Advent.

Because there is great concern that the Rolling Stones article about a rape victim at the University of Virginia is falling apart, I am making changes to this blog.

I was brought up to be honest.   I shoplifted a box of Jell-O when I was four because I loved raw Jell-O.  My mother took me back to the grocery store.  She made me apologize to the manager and pay for it out of my five-cents-per-week allowance.  Thanks, Mom.

George always said I was a twit.  Although he was very honest, he thought I made too much of it.  Whenever I noticed I was undercharged for an item, I always brought it to the attention of the store.  I won’t go on with other examples but, yes, I am a twit.

In 1969, we moved to Charlottesville, VA, where I started  work on a master’s of education at the University of Virginia.   In those years, the campus was segregated by gender.  Women could only attend classes in the School of Education and no other departments because–well, I don’t know why not.  However, all students had to attend a meeting about the HONOR CODE which was very important then.    We listened to a speaker explain honor for thirty minutes, then had to sign an honor pledge.  I was married with a small child and had only cheated on a test once in my life, in sophomore general science and have felt shame for years.  This is the only time or place I’ve confessed that.  But, very simply, when working on a master’s degree, I wasn’t going to cheat on a test or do anything dishonorable and felt a little insulted I had to listen to an explanation of honor as if it were a virtue I’d never understood or considered, then sign a pledge that I would be honorable.

Those who already plan to cheat are not going to be stopped by signing a pledge.  They’re perfectly willing to lie if they plan to cheat.

I reflect on this because of what we’re hearing about the great number of rapes on college campuses that are not investigated, are covered up, when the woman is encouraged not to call the police or to rock the boat or to open herself to the inevitable attacks that come when a woman cries rape.

And in the midst of all this is the University of Virginia.  I wonder if a campus leader still discusses the importance of being honorable, the need to be an honorable gentleman and Cavalier.  Does that leader realize there are men in the audience who don’t consider rape to be a dishonorable action?  Obviously there a few young men who haven’t been taught what honor really means, didn’t learn during the required meeting about the honor code that all deserve to be respected, even women.  Seems to me that many universities ignore those offenses because they believe the reputation of their institution is more important than the protection of all their students. Or perhaps they believe boys will be boys.

NBC News said tonight that since 1998, 180 UVa students have been expelled for honor code violations.  None of those infractions were for sexual assault.  Does this suggest that as long as a man doesn’t cheat on a test, whatever else he may do is just fine?

Which brings up my question:  Why bother with an honor code?

The other day, I asked a woman how she met her husband.  “I worked for the government in DC at the end of World War 2. While I waited for transfer to France, I went to a small store to buy clothes.   The owner said she had a nephew there with the FBI and gave me his name and phone number, telling me to call him. I did. We went out and got married a few months later.  I always wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t gone to that store or told the owner my story.”

I ended up teaching Spanish for thirty years because my mother didn’t like the French teacher in high school and enrolled me in Spanish.   Because a huge percentage of my life and income has been based on speaking Spanish, I can’t get my brain around the difference in my life because of a chance remark from the French teacher to my mother.

In your life, do you see a place where you might have been a different person if one tiny event had been different?

Do you see a way chance or coincidence changed you life?  I wonder what I’d be like today if I’d majored, for example, in PE.

As I imagine you all know, the First World War began one-hundred years ago when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand.    During the years of the war, nineteen million soldiers died.  19,000,000.  Nineteen million.

What we don’t realize is the inciting incident of the war to end all wars happened due to chance and bad communication.  Several nationalists had planned to assassinate the Archduke that morning but following a plan riddled with mistakes, didn’t get closer than one grenade that missed the car of the Archduke and his wife.  Later in the morning and after that initial incident, the driver of the Archduke’s car took a wrong turn because no one had told him the route had been changed.  The car stalled only a few feet from where Princip stood.   He took out a gun and shot both the Archduke and his wife from five feet away.

Would history have changed if the driver had been given the correct information or if Princip hadn’t been released by the police?  Probably not because nations determined to go to war will find a context.   Remember the Gulf of Tonkin  Resolution? Weapons of mass destruction? However, the spark probably would come at a different time and a different place.

My challenge for you:  think of a moment in history that could have gone one way or another if one tiny event had changed.  What if Columbus had headed north?  Or if President Lincoln had had better security or gone to bed early?   I’d love for you to share that.