Whenever I think about Christmas I find myself trying desperately, eyes crushed shut, while fighting to remember how it was when I was a child. The anticipation pushed me through snow and past slush. Expectation and hope for the one present I wanted Santa Claus to place beneath the tree propelled me. I try remembering the wonder of drifted snow awakened to after being cuddled downward into my blankets like a Snowshoe Rabbit. I try remembering my excitement as my feet hit the floor, working feverishly to gain traction as my sleeper encased feet slid on the bare hardwood floor leading to the magical Christmas tree.
Paper flew, pine needles drifted to the floor. They cast their fragrance into the air and my squeals of laughter erupted throughout the house. Mom and Dad came in and the new goodies got passed around for each of us to enjoy. Things can be remembered as idyllic, patient and kind. Memories occasionally carry other thoughts as well though. New world problems evolve and spill over into children’s realities.
Death, displacement, divorce, emotional distancing can intrude on the lives of the innocents as much as it does the guilty participants. Truth interrupts joy and problems dim the brightest lights working overtime to emulate a clear, starry night of long ago.
Now I know; somebody’s saying this is a downer for Christmastime. I thought about re-issuing the story of The Little Star, updated and modernized to reflect the growth of a family since that time. But I decided not. My world’s doing pretty good right now and I don’t want to put the kibosh on it all.
No, this one’s a statement of hope. I’m wrapping this one in it. Taking my best wishes and using them to hold the presentation together so they’ll attract your attention and maybe, just maybe, get you to think about something more important than your problems.
Christmas is a time to remember we’re not alone. Every one of us is a part of something greater than just OUR selfishness and eccentricities. The world isn’t ours alone to command. We’re a part of it with others, with individuals and groups and clusters of interacting entities seeking salvation, redemption and most important; visibility in a world daily becoming blinded to the faces around us.
This time of year is meant to prove there are some things worth the aggravations we endure and that we are filling that space for others as well. Their pain brings our charity and aid. Our thoughts and fears seek their condolences, commiseration and compassion. One hand looks for the other to hold and to dispel our apprehensions at possibly being lonely and abandoned when we can least handle it.
This mystical season gives us a chance to recognize a force in this world greater than the individual and collective thought-processes we so egotistically believe to be its equivalent. Scientists accept as inviolate truths, the data they personally collect as though proclaiming “this I know and it’s all anybody needs know”. They wrap the world in their logic and wonder why the wrapping rips from the pressure of the inexplicable pushing hard against the confines of man’s imagination with the force of a higher power’s real existence.
Christmas is a time when the bindings of man’s ego are torn away by the powers of wonder, loving acceptance and a spiritual belief something greater guides us. It is more than gifts under trees or the brilliance of little eyes seeing the right toy delivered. Christmas presents the ties that bind, threads woven tightly to make the tapestry of our lives, tapestries we hang to block the world’s chills and brighten our surroundings. We weave these threads of loving care to bind us and keep us together as people and as the family of man.
Christmas gives me pause to remember times that were once better and before I became jaded. It carries the weight of a holy day of remembrance and a time to pull forth for re-examination, those times, and people we came to love.
Merry Christmas, go tell your people you love them.
Love,
SARGE
