This is the time of year I start listening to sad, folky music. You know…the kind where even if you’re single, you feel as if your relationship is sinking. The kind where you can close your eyes and smell the drip coffee, pipe tobacco, and forest-aired flannel shirt of the artist that’s singing and picking at the banjo. This genre resonates with me during what should be the cold, dark months of winter (Florida sucks and shines in spite of whatever mood you’re in).
It’s in these months that I miss mountains. I miss family. I miss that warm feeling inside that Christmas used to bring. I miss everyone gathering at Great-Grandma Brookes’ house. I miss getting snowed in on the mountain and having to sleep on the floor because there weren’t enough beds. I miss my grandmother’s laughter. It was infectious and hearing it in my memory now creates a lump in my throat.
I don’t ever remember believing in Santa fully, but I remember Christmas being magical all the same. My family used to have what I call “Norman Rockwell” Christmases. Honestly, they probably weren’t that amazing. But from the eyes of an eight year old, it was magic. It was warmth radiating in your stomach that had nothing to do with hot cocoa. It was getting what you asked for before you wanted things you couldn’t have.
Now that I’m older and realize that I have a very over-active imagination, I wonder if my memories are true. Are they really what I felt and saw or is is what I think I should have felt and seen? Is it just what I want to have felt and seen? And what did these same moments feel like to my parents or to my grand parents?
Now that I’m older (much older than Mary had been) I think about the first Christmas. Singing in church the other day, one line in a classic Christmas song hit me. “Til He appeared, and the soul felt it’s worth.” Immediately my eyes welled with tears. Immediately this warmth radiated in my stomach. And it had nothing to do with hot chocolate. You could call it…a thrill of hope.
As we kept singing I stood there imagining that first Christmas. I wonder if for a moment the ongoing film that is this movie, “Earth” switched into slo-mo as God within a baby took His first breath and let out His first cry. I wonder if Mary let out a sigh and whispered, “It is finished.” And then the shot pulls back and pans out over the expanse of Bethlehem and beyond as souls and tummies light up with warmth, with worth.
The last verse of O Holy Night might be my favorite, it goes like this:
“Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.”
John Sullivan Dwight, an American abolitionist, adapted these words from the original French as the South raged against the North, trying to keep hold of their oppression against brothers with different skin. And during the Franco-Prussian War, a Frenchman rolled out of his trench, walked into harm’s way and sang all three verses. He was answered by the Germans singing one of their own Christmas hymns back. Supposedly the fighting stopped for 24 hours while Christmas passed. The song went on the be the first song played on radio waves, ever.
Even writing this post, here at the library on my last day of work, I’m not really sure what the point of this post is. Maybe you are like me and miss the “magic” that Christmas used to bring. Maybe lately you’ve felt down about the state of this world, the state of this life, your life. Maybe your soul hasn’t felt it’s worth in a very long time.
To all of this, to all of you, all I can say is this:
I love you. God loves you. Merry Christmas.
