Christmas is a season of extremes.
When I go walking after a new snowfall the silence suggests that there might not be another living soul for miles. The solitude surrounds me as far as I can see. Then if I concede to take my daughters to the mall
the cacophony and crowds convince me that there has been a global migration to this particular store. Signs and price tags all skew my sense of balance until I begin to believe that $148 is a steal for a sequined mohair sweater, and how have I managed to sustain meaningful life without one?
Then I break free of that magnetic monetary force field and head for the parking lot. The timid tinkling of the Salvation Army Santa
pulls my awareness back to the portion of humanity for whom any sweater at all, stained and second hand, would bring precious warmth.
December is peppered with parties, and I can feel the joy of family in an embarrassment of riches. So many jovial friends in every variation of red apparel, bearing sugar sprinkled cookies and wrapped surprises, bringing laughter and love in abundance. There are more bodies than I can hug, more
truffles than I can swallow.
But around the corner there is probably someone feeling desperately alone. The absence of connection stings even more sharply in juxtaposition to the lights and music spilling out of the windows next door.
Near the end of her life the wrinkles on my mother's hands outnumbered the
smooth places. The struggle to move her body from one resting place to another often outweighed the motivation to get there. Carrying accessories took a toll on her limited endurance, so she asked for help or went without. Yet daily she welcomed my sprightly daughters who loved to dance at her feet and twirl pretty necklaces. Their whole life span up to that point filled less time than their grandmother spent in college six decades before. For them movement was as necessary
as breathing, and extra dolls and flowers improved the journey.
It is a stretch to be yanked from one end of the spectrum to another. It feels like bungee jumping. Solitude and crowds, decadence and dearth, lavishness and lack, longevity and new life.
When I try to squeeze into an awareness of the circumstances of Jesus' birth, I notice a similar
disparity. Evidently Bethlehem was packed beyond capacity. Mary and Joseph must have felt the angst of being unwanted and isolated. Even my best efforts at self pity pale against such rejection. Yet there were other people, people of great import, who not only desired the company of this wee family, they were determined to invest significant time and expense to obtain it. Boinnng.
The shepherd's nightly vigil was a lonely
one. Likely the only sounds on the hill were the soft bleat of sleepy sheep and the scant light was from the campfire. Then in an explosion of brightness and song came a canopy of angels, obliterating all traces of feeling alone or forgotten. Heaven itself yanked them from fear and doubt to its burnished threshold. Booiiinngg.
The celestial message was of peace. For a moment suspended in time humankind gazed across the veil
into reality where pain's tenacious fingers could not reach. Then just as abruptly, the heavy threat of infanticide sent the couple into the darkness, racing for the Life of a Baby. Boooiiinnggg.
Rejection and worship, monotony and exultation, exile and peace. Why the incessant paradox? Where is the illusive balance? Wouldn't it be simpler to just settle for mediocrity somewhere in the middle?
It would appear that God wants something more.
There is considerable energy stored up in a bungee rope stretched to its limit. The force is invisible until it is unleashed, when we witness our own sweeping acceleration toward something that seconds ago felt pathetically out of reach.
Christmas can
be a tromping ground for greed, frenzy and depression. Yet in another breath we can be grabbed bodily and transported by a Cord whose zenith is fixed to the brightest Star in the sky.
