Tuesday, December 15, 2020

A December Check-In

 Here we are in mid-December. 


In previous years, seeing December 15th on my calendar would have caused me to panic. The list of tasks to complete before Christmas seemed daunting--presents still to buy and wrap and get into the mail; boxes of cards to address, sign, and add personal notes, plans to bake many loaves of cherry walnut bread and deliver to neighbors and others. At the same time days were filled with events, church services,  concerts, service projects, and gatherings with friends and family. 

The list was long, but for the most part I loved the doing. I have never been a Christmas grouch, but I have taken my role as a Christmas elf seriously and worked deliberately through the list--checking it twice at least. Most years, however, I maintained space for silence in those busy days. I reflected on the wonder and opened to the gifts of the sacred season. I treasured Advent.

I knew this year would be different. Most of our shopping was done online and sent directly to the receiver. No in-house entertaining is on the calendar, and concerts and church services are enjoyed via ZOOM. Some things remain the same: I still have unopened boxes of Christmas cards, but the list of recipients is much longer than previous years, and I have all the ingredients waiting for many more batches of cherry walnut bread. 

More importantly, what's different this year is what is missing. Our son and daughter-in-love won't be arriving from Cleveland for the holidays. We won't go out for an elegant dinner Christmas Eve with our forever friends before going to the candlelight service at church. And Christmas Day won't be spent with our kids and grandkids. And my father, who died in May, won't be with us. Last year we wondered, "Would this be Dad's last Christmas?" and it was. 

I have given myself permission to be sad, to acknowledge the losses, the differences from previous years, but I also appreciate what remains the same--the wonder, the gift we Christians wait for in the birth of the child. What remains the same is the hope for peace and justice, and the desire to create that in the world. Even in the presence of my own loss and the profound losses experienced by so many, I treasure Advent this year. Perhaps more than any other year. 

And so, I take a deep breath, and rest in the invitations of these days.

                            Blessed are you
                            in whom 
                            the light lives,
                            in whom
                            the brightness blazes--
                            your heart
                            a chapel,
                            an altar where
                            in the deepest night
                            can be seen 
                            the fire that
                            shines forth in you
                            in accountable faith, 
                            in stubborn hope,
                            in love that illumines
                            every broken thing
                            it finds.
                                        Jan Richardson

An Invitation
How is this December different for you, but what is the same? I would love to know. 

 




2 comments:

  1. As always, I love your thoughts that you put into words. Christmas will be just the two of us this year. No family gatherings. Our son now lives 2200 miles away and he can't come home for Christmas because of his job. We might have my mom over here on Christmas Eve, but that hasn't been officially determined yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blessings to you throughout Advent and into the Christmas days.

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