Christmas

i feel that i am walking through the nativity story with my home.  we have travelled from the peace of our house being in the constant state of immaculate perception, through the travail of sale, and into the chaos of moving!  from darkness to light, uncertainty to certainty.  what an appropriate time of year to feel God's nearness and care, his miraculous provision, his unshaking faithfulness.

christmas day was a whirl, not a moment to sit - unless i was building legos or making crafts or EATING or spending time with family.  who's to complain?  but i did not get a chance to sit and contemplate and wonder.  thankfully, i did get many chances to do so throughout the season of advent - one more reason to celebrate a season rather than a day.  anyways, here's some poetry for you, consider it a present.

Today you see in a stable
the Word speechless,
Greatness in smallness,
Immensity in blankets.
such wonders!...

He who had no beginning,
his being of Time begins;
the Creator, as a creature,
is now subject to our griefs.
such wonders!
(Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, "Carol 3," Mexican, seventeenth century)

one moment from the last few weeks that really moved me was at (of all places) my daughter's Christmas assembly.  here, in a room of 700 or so children and staff of all faith backgrounds, these words are sung loud and strong:
"I love thee Lord Jesus, look down from the sky...". 
a Christmas miracle.
did a child in that crowd sing those words for the first time and question?  did an adult and begin to believe?  i was one adult who sang with conviction, except for the "no crying he makes" line.  as if. 

i was thinking in the shower this morning about having God as your child, wondering what behaviors would disappear, and what would remain.  for example:  temper tantrums.  i mean, i'd like to believe they're sinful, but maybe, like every toddler trying to find some control in life, Jesus stomped his foot as well.  Maybe Jesus would have behaved like my three year old in church Christmas Eve, tired and wanting to run and explore instead of sitting quietly by Mary.  but would Mary have said "if you do that one more time I'm cancelling Christmas"?  For obvious reasons no, but i'd like to believe that she might have threatened Purim or something :).  (not my finest parenting moment).

Christmas was a really beautiful day this year.  I feel so SO thankful that Scott is home, so in love with my family, so aware that I will look back on this Christmas for years to come as the last one in BC.  and, to make things perfect, it was complete with gloom and rain and plus8 weather.  the presents were a hit, and my boxing day wishes came true in the form of new tupperware to organize said presents.  tomorrow the boxes arrive and a new chapter begins. 

but before that, a night to sit in poetry, snuggle with my hubby, and enjoy the peace.  i hope that your night also carries within it calm and bright and heavenly peace. 

one more present, from Luci Shaw:

    After 
The white-hot beam of annunciation
fused heaven with dark earth,
his searing, sharply focused light
went out for a while,
eclipsed in amniotic gloom;
his cool immensity of splendor,
his universal grace,
small-folded in a warm, dim
female space -
the Word stern-sentenced to be
nine months' dumb -
infinity walled in a womb,
until the next enormity -
the Mighty One, after submission
to a woman's pains,
helpless on a barn's bare floor,
first-tasting bitter earth.

(Luci Shaw, "Made Flesh")