Three days before Christmas, and throughout the globe and entire nation, we’re prepping for the holidays, and all the celebration.
Families will gather, missing loved ones with care, knowing deep down we wish, we could join together somewhere.
We get to the place in which we poetically speak of the clatter, but this day we speak of the most beautiful matter…
Know what we like most about this season? … or at least the days beforehand and the week before us? I speak of Christmas Eve to New Year’s — with Hanukkah in between…
There are stories and stockings and visions of sugar-plums in our heads… there are latkes and lights and all sorts of little elves on the shelves… there are cheesecakes and chestnuts and candlelight church services…
It is such a time of merry… such a time of glee. It indeed seems a season of a string of holy nights.
So a couple of permeating thoughts in these nights before Christmas…
First, I think one of the things I like best is that we slow down.
When I relocated some seven years ago, one of the wisest men I know and one of the wisest women I know — older and unrelated to one another — each gave me a set of books, but both gave me a book on intentional rest. Slowing down. Being still. My sense is there was something they wanted me to know…
There is wisdom in being still. It allows us to reflect; it allows us to ponder; and it diminishes our embedded temptation to over-react. Sometimes in current day culture, I think a lot of our polarization and division is because we perch; we pounce; and we jump right in with our immediate perspective. We don’t take the time to be still, know God, and do our due diligence in siphoning out the sagacity in perspectives other than our own. Such is where we fall prey to bias, adopt black-and-white thinking, and/or conclude solely one has cornered the market on morality.
Stillness is one of life’s absolute best, healthiest practices. I’m excited in the week ahead, that many of us will choose to be still.
Second, no less, let us acknowledge that while it is indeed a time of merry and glee, not every moment surrounding the holidays feels so holly and jolly. There is loneliness. There is grief in regard to those we miss, those no longer here. And there are gatherings that oft include relationships we find difficult to navigate. Here is where we’re confronted with another one of life’s poignant realities; sometimes we find ourselves feeling seemingly competing emotions at the exact same time.
It all makes sense. And so we ponder…
Peace on Earth…
Goodwill toward men… women… and all humankind…
Glory to God in the highest!
So much to think upon, my friends.
So grateful for this time to be still…
Respectfully…
AR