December arrives and the reality dawns that another calendar year is fast drawing to a close. Traditional countdowns to the big day begin and something changes as a new frenzied pace enters people’s lives. Plans for things you wanted to do this year, and didn’t, get tossed aside or stored to resurface later. December is all about finishing off the year and beginning to think about the new year ahead. All new projects are put off until the new year once the holidays are over. The major focus of December is getting ready for Christmas and the excitement associated with making holiday plans.
So here we are, Christmas Eve 2009 – the night before the big day. Another cycle is about to be completed. I’ve made it for another year. I have some cooking to do tonight but for the most part everything is ready for tomorrow. Every year has a familiarity about it but it is never the same for one reason or another. There are so many feelings flooding our beings leading up to this moment … anticipation … dread… conflicting emotions .. beliefs and traditions … exhaustion … ill-health … elation … a time for reflection and family … a time when peace reigns but none of the ugliness disappears.
Christmas, like life, is all about the stories – yours, mine, everyones.
Over the years the way this night unfolded has changed as our family has changed. Every year even the traditional things we do are different. Yet on Christmas Eve I am always mindful of the story of Christmas that initiated the celebration in the first instance – yes, the birth of Christ. I love that story with its promise of an enduring, bright love being gifted to us all in human form. The Bible gives us one version of the story of that night all those years ago. Tonight I read this interpreation of what might have happened that night in that stable in Bethlehem …
Ponder this. The first Christmas unfolded the way it did because, one ancient night, an exhausted and harried innkeeper’s wife stopped long enough to be moved by the power of Love. She improvised so that a frightened, unmarried teenage girl about to give birth to her first child could be comforted. And in so doing, she midwifed a miracle that would change the world. Forgive me if you must, but may I gently point out that on the first Christmas Eve, God the Father was in Heaven. God the Great Mother was on earth. In my heart, I see the older woman leaving the crowded, rowdy dining room and rushing up the stairs to her bedroom, opening up a trunk, and bringing forth her best, making sure that all she had would be all the mother and baby would need. She gathers in her arms linen and silk, the blankets from her own bed, her favourite shawl.
In my imagination, I can also see the young girl’s thankful smile, hear her sigh of relief, taste the salt in her tears. I smell not only a barn but the aroma of the broth the older woman helped the younger sip to keep up her strength. As I hug my own daughter, I can feel the reassurance both women felt in each other’s presence. I know that the older woman’s sacred gift of generosity and the younger woman’s gratitude are not insignificant footnotes to what has been called the Greatest Story Ever Told. It’s how the Wonder unfolded.
“On Christmas Eve love is clothed with visible vestments, with gifts and written words, with holly wreaths and flowers and candles. The love that through the year is silenced by busy-ness is expressed in terms of tangible beauty,” Abbie Graham wrote in 1928. “As I watch the Christmas candles burn, I see in them a symbol of Great Love which dipped a lustrous spirit into human form so that the world in its darkness might be illumined and made beautiful.”
It’s not blasphemy to believe that on that holy Night, the Lustrous Spirit that helped light the world’s darkness wasn’t coming only from the Child.
There were also two women in that stable. Tonight two women are in the kitchen.
Source: Breathnach, S. B. (2002). Romancing The Ordinary: A Year of Everday Indulgences (pp. 529-530), New York: Simon and Schuster.
Well there were three women in my kitchen tonight. Myself and the two women who were on my mind – my daughter on the other side of the world, and my sister (who by the way is the mother of six) as she strategises to beat the cancer that has invaded her body. Neither of them were physically present in my kitchen but they were in my heart and soul. I was connected to them and I held on to them very tightly. I wanted them to feel my love for them.
Chritmas Eve is about Mary and her child. May peace be in the hearts of all mothers and their children tonight. May the bright shining light of love surround you all and keep you safe, well and happy.
Manifesto
15. Every day make a difference to yourself and others.
20. Every day say thank you.
36. Every day be still. Connect to your inner being. Listen and be guided by it.
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