Willing the Peace and Being the Joy of the Season
From Christmas 2009
Reading time: 10 minutes + -
My Sweetheart came looking for me last Sunday morning to bring me a cup of coffee. He found me in the living room washing the floor on my hands and knees. “Why are you doing that?” he asked. Anyone who knows me knows that housekeeping is not my usual thing. In fact anyone who comes to my house without warning is witness to that.
“I just wanted to clean in the corners and behind the tree.” (as if that made sense). It wasn’t a moment before that I confided I was a little bit sad about Christmas. It was Christmas Eve three years ago that my beloved husband, George, began his final decent to his death in early February. Little wonder that my sons weren’t all fired up about the holiday. Of course, the tears that threatened just eased the flow of the other woes that didn’t quite fit with the tree sparkling with lights in the corner.
Then I just dumped out the whole gunny sack of emotions: It was five days until Christmas and I didn’t have the money to shop. A business venture was turning sour and a friend I trusted had abused that trust. I had neglected what was most important to me to ‘do’ other things and I was left with the emptiness of time wasted. My house had been for sale for a year and a half and I had no idea what the spring held. I had dreams and wishes – but right then I had a floor to wash.
Christmas has a way of shining a Klieg light on life. Where’s the promised joy? Where is the peace? We can blame commercialism. We can blame religiosity. We can blame the market, the kids, our job. But it isn’t Christmas that is wrong. It’s that we are looking in the wrong place for its meaning. It is not in the words of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”. It’s not in the lineup for Tiffany’s. It’s not in a cup of eggnog – rum or no rum. It is not in a Norman Rockwell painting. It isn’t even at midnight mass. Peace and joy start on the inside and work their way out. Christmas symbols are the map to find those twin twinkling lights within. Read more…
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