Amid the busyness of our Christmas preparations, I would like to propose two pivots, or touchstones, for our undertakings; namely neighbourliness and patience, writes Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill.

Exams are over, the school holidays are imminent, decorations are up, parties abound, and the shops are busy. Australians are preparing to celebrate Christmas and the summer holiday season. Across the world, Christian communities prepare for this religious feast.

I hope these weeks in December can be a time of looking forward as well as looking back. The space is multidimensional, layered with practices and expectations from religion, family, community, workplace and educational institutions to name just some influences.

Gathering to ’celebrate’ weaves across these dimensions of our lives.

For Christians, first and foremost, this is a celebration of God’s outpouring love. We remember that God enters fully into human history, becomes fully human in time and place. In faith, we know that while there was one time and place in which God took human flesh, God continues to enter fully into our human reality in all its circumstances.

For some in our community, the focus is on end of year: work, business, education. Gathering is a ritual of giving thanks for success, or for endurance, or for the gifts of each other, or for completion. Somehow the coming together reminds us that we are not alone in the enterprise of life.

Unfortunately, for some in our community, there is no desire for the gathering or the ‘celebration’; the ritual is observed for custom sake, to be endured amid the drudgery of life.

Threaded across the gatherings are occasions of gift-giving, over-abundance of food and drink. For some there is delight, while others are anxious about the cost, the time, the expectations that seem too excessive.

While these days can be gift, there is a very latent danger that in the midst of all the activity and expectation, we lose sight of the meaning.

I want to propose two pivots, or touchstones, for our undertakings at this time; namely neighbourliness and patience.

It seems to me that these days provide many opportunities to ask myself who is included in my life, in my gatherings, in my engagements? I am not proposing to make my gatherings larger and, therefore, more stressful. But I am asking myself whether my activities – gatherings, cards, gifts, invitations – only include those whom I like or who will respond positively to me.

“Kindness – the essential quality of a cooperative species – is never about doing something for others in the hope of receiving thanks, let alone a benefit. It’s not a reciprocal thing,” writes Hugh Mackay in The Kindness Revolution. Nor is it, in my opinion, about grand gestures and demanding gifts and activities.

Kindness is as simple as ensuring that no one sits alone or excluded at the staff Christmas party. It is as simple and profound as those whom I greet on the stairs or acknowledge as I hurry about other activities. This is surely what it means to be neighbour.

For me, kindness is associated with patience. The God who becomes human in Jesus, the one whose birth is celebrated at Christmas, is a God of patience and encouragement (Romans 5:5). In the busyness of life, patience is easily forgotten. Perhaps we have grown to expect instant responses and solutions. We just cannot wait. We don’t have the time.

But if we are attentive, life teaches us otherwise. Parents wait for the birth of their child. Gestation cannot be hurried; the entire nine months is needed for the growth and development of the unborn child. We wait patiently as the child learns new skills; from their first steps, to reading, to playing an instrument or solving mathematical problems.

In the same way, I am only at ease with myself when I am patient with myself. When I accept that I am still a learner in the ways of life, when I stumble and fall and get up again (usually metaphorically).

I return to this time of preparing for and celebrating Christmas. I feel the call to be a good neighbour, to be patient. We might not find our names on an awards list for these simple acts, but we will make a difference in the lives of those who experience our kindness. I believe this is best gift we can give.