Four of our family got together in Paris. It involved long flights, congested roads, boring layovers, and inconvenient schedules on trains. But the pull to see each other was strong, and they went.
Meanwhile I was not idle. We had our own small celebration, and I spent the days leading up to Christmas tidying and doing laundry.
One of the things I noticed was how often I simply moved things from one place to another. A spilled jar of pens on the floor looked messy. But scooping them up and putting them back on the desk was tidy. Dirty dishes piled on the counter got in the way of preparing lunch, but tucking them into the dishwasher solved that. Lugging a mattress and covering it with sheets that used to hibernate in the linen closet made a welcoming space.
Christmas is a time of movement. Shepherds came with haste to the stable. Wise men traveled to Jerusalem and to the house of a young King. Angels swooped down from heaven to deliver good news. Mary and Joseph journeyed to Egypt in the cloak of night.
In one part of the story it was right to be here. But the turn of events necessitated going over there.
Christmas is an invitation to move. We shift our weight from self absorption to altruism. We put our jobs on hold long enough to sit in a candle washed cathedral.
My prayer for you this Christmas is that you will find the strength to move, from despair to hope, from apathy to passion, from seeing your dreams spilled across the floor to catching them up in your fist.
