Blessed Christmas

Brokenness sometimes overwhelms me at Christmas, the fog rolling in tonight a stealthy reminder despite its soft beauty.  When I was a freshman in college, we opened our gifts on Christmas Eve to accommodate my brother’s stepson and his other grandparents.  On Christmas morning, my mother’s birthday, her father died at 3:00 a.m.  We’ve opened gifts on Christmas Eve ever since.

Two years ago was the first Christmas without my daddy.  One year ago was the first Christmas without his sister.  This is the first Christmas without my brother, the last of the immediate family.  And here I am in Tennessee, while my mother celebrates Christmas without family. 

Yet we celebrate, because the Babe came to bring hope, to bring light, to offer the star that ever shines above our Mordor, no matter how impenetrable the clouds of sin and sorrow may seem.  On this foggy Christmas Eve, I have our own unique Christmas tree to remind me.

The jade is an offshoot of the one my daddy grew at the University of Kansas; his was quite a large tree when it finally died long after his retirement.  But he had given me a shoot from it when I got married – “it’s the only thing I know you won’t kill,” he teased me, knowing I never remember to water plants.  We lost the original, I fear, to the abuse of some move or other, but this is its descendent.  We never got a “real” Christmas tree, because we always traveled to my parents’ home, where a tree and wreaths and lights and cookies waited, when the kids were growing up – but I love the little blue lights in the glossy green of the jade leaves, and the simple crèche at its foot. 

As this jade with its tiny lights comes from my father’s better-cared-for and massive plant, I am reminded that hope comes from my heavenly Father’s gift – and however much I and the rest of the world may try to darken and twist and destroy that gift, we cannot.  His light will always be shining, always be waiting, anticipating our upturned eyes to see.  And even the tiniest light will penetrate the darkness if we only look.

A blessed Christmas to all, especially to those who suffer loneliness, loss, sorrow this season.  May His light brighten even the darkest moments with His hope.

Christmas Stories from NRO

Christmas "Over There"

A soldier remembers Christmas in Iraq

God with Us: A Meditation for Christmas Day

(I don't pretend to have any understanding of transubstantiation, but that's not really the point of the post, as you will see if you read the whole thing.)

The First Enlightenment

A sobering reminder of the way the world tends.

Watching Derek

Not exactly a Christmas story but a lovely reminder of the nature of beauty. If you look up the young man's website, you'll find video of his performances -- amazing.

Merry . . . er . . .

Something to make you laugh, I hope. (If you are one of my liberal friends, this probably doesn't apply to you personally. So I hope you will laugh with me!)

Making Room on Campus

The story of an organization committed to saving babies from abortion -- Room at the Inn

Not Quite Christmas

I’ve been trying all day to think of a happy Christmas message to write, but I don’t seem to have one this year. It’s been an odd break, not Christmas-like – I’m used to being with my parents this time of year, and I haven’t had the energy or inclination (hooray for end-of-semester exhaustion, plus toothaches, plus medication that adds headaches as a final insult) to be the least bit festive. Not that I’m especially able at creating that mood even at my best.

So it’s been a quiet day at home, nothing very special except for the phone calls to and from family members elsewhere. I’ve mainly spent the break, including today, sleeping and working on prep for next semester’s classes; we ordered books for the YM’s spring classes today and a few for me. And part of me has struggled with feeling sad and lonely and generally in a the-world’s-not-fair mood.

But one of my tasks has been re-reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell, prepping to teach it next semester. And so I am reminded that I am not here to feel good. I am here to love God and my neighbor, to take joy not in circumstances but in Him and in His people, to bear the burdens of others as others have so often borne mine, to recognize His love in all the wild and quiet, wonderful and quotidian ways that it is manifest in this world He created, marred though it has become. Under the Mercy, as Peter Stanhope would say.

So . . . my youngest turns 18 in two days – that’s something to celebrate. We drove around town and enjoyed Christmas lights tonight – what beauty God allows us to create.* My oldest son and his family sacrificed his leave time to make the long drive to visit my parents – how God manifests His love in His children. I have a husband who loves me and does so many lovely sweet things to show it – not every wife is so blessed. I sit here surrounded by books – and how less rich my life would be without those many voices that challenge and comfort and bless me. Tomorrow, then, I shall try to remember His blessings, and not allow the inevitable sorrows of a broken world to negate His beauty that still shines forth in it. Under the Mercy . . .

* (You can see the YM’s excellent photographs from the drive, along with many others, at Vesta Photography. He’s good – really good. And I don’t think I’m overly biased . . .)

"How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas"

Over at Mere Comments yesterday, David Mills posted this poem written by MC commenter Joe Long. Enjoy! And Merry Christmas, Happy Holy Days, and all that.

(One more week, just one more week . . .)

Christmas Cheer

Saturday evening, K went for a walk as night was falling on a gloomy dusk at the end of a cloudy, cold day. Returning, he told me that he'd been walking along in a bit of the spirit of the evening when he turned a corner and there were simple Christmas lights in someone's yard -- cheery color leaping out from the gloom to lift the spirit; further on, another display of simple cheer as a reminder.

Gems of joy; gems of joy.

Christmas Cometh . . . At Last!

I have turned in grades and am now simply trying to clear the mind, find the things I need to take with me to work on during the break, clean up the office a bit so it looks better when I come back.

We will be gone for a couple of weeks, probably without internet access.

The YM sent me an email yesterday:

Dear Santa Claus,

When I was little, I accepted that when you pass judgment on little children, you really knew what was right and wrong. But now, a lifetime of experience has left me bitter. What is good? What is bad?

Can I say to my neighbor "I am good and you are bad?" Who are you to say if we are good or bad? And where's that iPod Nano? Huh??

This will be the last year I send a letter to you, so you'd better get everything on my list right this time. (Last year you mixed up my list with someone who wanted t-shirts and underwear.)

iPod Nano, xBox360, Sam's Town by The Killers, a Pearls treasury, some sunglasses that Gwen Stefani wore in Wind It Up, and $200 cash.

Thank you.

p.s. Can you give me Fred Claus's email address? You know, your brother who give gifts to all the bad children.
**************

I'm still laughing.

May you have a blessed Christmas season and know the love of the One who came so we could be reconciled to the Father.

Blessed Christmas to All

My mother was born on Christmas Day. Her father, when I was a freshman in college, died on Christmas Day. We had always opened gifts on Christmas morning, but for some reason I can't recall we opened them on Christmas Eve that year. Granddad died at 3:00 a.m. We have opened gifts on Christmas Eve, after the candlelight service, ever since. Since that time, Christmas has always held a kind of dissonance for me: celebrating my mother's birth, remembering my granddad's death.

But isn't this part of the season's glory? Not just that the Baby was born, but that He died? Had He been born and not died, we would still be dead in our sins. And His death and resurrection remind me that the death that claims ever more people I love has been long conquered. Death's victory is hollow and temporal; the Son's is filled with glory and eternal.

John Donne said it long ago:

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

It is a wonder indeed that He came -- yet an even greater wonder that His mission in coming was to die.

As I travel to visit my parents and other family (taking perhaps a hiatus from the web), I pray for you who read a blessed Christmas, that as you celebrate with family and friends you will remember why the Baby was born and allow the wonder of His death -- for you -- to wash over all that you do.