Christmas

Outside, the winds blow past icicles, over snow wrapped trees, through the whole of the snow-blanketed countryside.  It is Christmas time again, and despite the cold and ice over the land, homes--small outposts of light and warmth--are everywhere hanging holly, wrapping strands of pine about banisters and doors, and lighting windows.  Everywhere, in the dead of winter, men and women prepare for joy. 

Yet joy doesn't seem to be what it used to be.  Sure, each of us can summon the spirit.  Everyone can look on the bright side of things if they choose.  But the unrestrained, shining eye, unashamed beaming grin sort of joy--that it seems so many of us have left by accident somewhere in childhood.  And as adults will do, we try to recreate those childhood treasures with all our knowledge and craft; we reach back and try to steal moments from the past.  But we never quite find that joy again; the mystery and anticipation of the thing has vanished, but if we keep our eyes and our hearts open, we can touch it again for a moment.  We can remember joy, and in remembering be made new.

In town, our forgetting it is easy to see.  People buy turkeys, hustle around with bags of presents, and, in general, race about.  It is as if everyone has this great sense that they must hurry up and be happy, for Christmas was upon them: The season of Dread and Mirth.  How easy it is to let childhood's wisdom slip past us.  Children don't worry about who will be at whose home, they don't worry whether they will have "a proper holiday".  The thousand thoughts that crowd into our mind never occur to theirs.  Something wonderful and unexplainable is about to happen for them, and that is all that matters.  They will give and receive with a joyful heart untroubled by the passing colors of this world.  

The children, for all of us grown-ups, are the great present of these days. Through them comes to us again, the grace and mystery of Christ.  In their complete disregard for triviality we are reminded that there are deeper callings in this life than who, what, when, and where.  In their rapture for what might be, what could be, what stands just around the corner, we are taught, again, that those deeper callings are essentially joyful.  Christ, both man and God, walked the Earth building a kingdom of Love.  And whether he was mocked, chased out of town, or threatened, he kept on.  Just as even the poorest, most abused child, holds a secret hope in their heart that this Christmas will be different, that some miracle of yet unseen grace will deliver us all from suffering.  They keep on, holding an eternal vigil in their hearts.  A flame, constant and precious.

So in this Christmas season, may we all wait with unrestrained hope for what could be, let go of that which is foolish, and protect and share the light in our hearts as a great treasure that can remake the world.  May we all remember joy.