Christmas Musings

photo by David Wright / flickr

It's Christmas morning. My house in a nice neighborhood is quiet. Music fills my house. The Christmas trees are lighted--yes two trees I got carried away. Meanwhile outside the house down the street people with little sacks move form the grocery store down the street . They have no car. At Hardee's this morning a slender man covered in tattoos brings in a cake and gives it to one of the workers. "It's vanilla" he says as he smiles. Some of the politicians are growling, "we've got to take our country back." To where pray tell.

All this silly talk about political correctness--spoken with a sneer is strange. Worrying about Happy Hilidays and messages on Starbucks cups. Wired thinking. Last night our family sat together at our Christmas Eve service. The church was packed. On the second row was a Mother and Father that buried their thirty-something the day before. As the Bread was broken and the cup poured we one by one walked to the table. Talk about political correctness. There we were Republicans and Democrats and the who cares. There were blacks and Chinese and women with tattoos on their necks. One man hobbled to the front with his cane. Young couples with children. An old woman living alone came to the Table. The little man whose wife with Alzheimer's not knowing him made his way to the front. There were kids and proud old parents sitting with grown kids from all over. One by one we came. With a common need. We were all hungry for something. Acceptance. Love. Hoping to start over. Maybe just to get through the day without falling down.

Yes the world outside the doors was complicated and hard. So much going the wrong way. Yet we
last night like pilgrims from all over streamed down some aisle. We've been doing this for hundreds of years. One of the root words for faith is rope. I love that word. Rope. To hold on to. To pull us through. To just survive or make it. Maybe the old fashioned word save us.

The tree will come down soon. We'll consign the Christmas music to the back of the stacks. We'll put up a new calendar. We don't know what this new year will bring. But we have this slender rope. And remembering last night and the trail of need and hunger that walked to a table we will remember on the hard cold days ahead. And we will go on.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com