Advent 3: You're in the right place!

 

You might have noticed that I never miss an opportunity to ‘dine out’ on an experience that comes my way.

Well, on Monday of this week I had some emergency eye surgery for a retinal tear. The day started with a 9.30am appointment at Stoke Mandeville but after countless people had looked into my right eye saying phrases like: ‘Oh, I see’, or ‘Well, it’s a bit bigger than we expected’! I was sent off to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and by 1pm I arrived.

Actually, I got there quicker than my notes, so for a while I was something of an enigma to them.  Having been sent to the walk in eye clinic I found myself in a waiting room bustling with over a hundred patients all being triaged.

I was so taken by the helpful and encouraging receptionist who clearly saw my anxiety that having spent all morning at Stoke Mandeville I might have to start the process all over again at the John Radcliffe.  He words resonated with calm assurance when she said: Don’t worry, you are in the right place…

Sure enough, 30 mins later she found me out, said all the notes had now come through and I was whisked upstairs.  By 5pm I was having surgery and having been picked up by our youngest son, Jonty, was home by 7pm.  I can’t see through the eye yet, it has a gas bubble in it now, but the hope is that in a month or two things will be back to normal.

I received such wonderful and skilled treatment on Monday at both hospitals, and I’m truly thankful.  I’m also very grateful to that receptionist who reassured me that I was in the right place.

What is, I wonder, the right place for us? 

It's difficult to answer such a question at times and maybe we often want to be somewhere else.  Days of bereavement or health issues are not easy places to be.

My right place was only made possible because at that moment when I was very vulnerable, I found myself surrounded by people who cared.

Our right places might have moments of essential solitude, yet often these are so helpfully balanced by other moments when life is tempered by being in community and walking with others in companionship.

So…bringing it back to the stories of Advent and Christmas…I wonder if those shepherds scratched their heads as they arrived at the manger wondering Is this really the right place for us?  Although the gospels don’t say it, we get the impression that something of The Spirit stirred in their hearts as they knelt before the Christ child reassuring them that this was absolutely the right place to be that special night.