Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Dearest God,

Christmas is a mixture of nostalgia, memory, hope, anticipation, sorrow, and love. All rolled up into one package. On any given day I can be wrapped up in memory, childhood recollections of days gone by. Of Christmas morning stuck upstairs in our bedrooms until our parents turned on the tree lights and set out Santa's unopened gifts. Receiving my walking bride doll and Christopher, my big pink dog. My favorite gifts. Mother receiving every conceivable kind of underwear...slips, panties, bras, nylons and thinking she probably wouldn't be able to keep them to herself with three teenage daughters in the household.

Or sorrow, the losses of my grandparents and parents and all the very special moments we shared at Christmas time on the farm and in the city. Of favorite food aromas wafting through the houses to be devoured by hungry children and grandchildren. Of hugs and lots of them. "I love you's" and "Merry Christmas, sweetheart's."

Or anticipation, the joy of my own grandchildren gathering at Grandma and Grandpa's house, of laughter and fun. Selecting the one story to be shared before we open the gifts and the reading again on Christmas morning of the birth story of Jesus. The prayer of thanksgiving. We have much to celebrate and thanks to give.

But this year I am living in the hope of Christmas. With hope is faith and trust in God. I don't hope for gifts or a white Christmas. I live in the hope that is daily coming from God. It is the love that came at Christmas to every home, stable, village, refugee camp, hospital room, ghetto, under bridges and on the streets. It is Jesus. He is not wrapped up like a glittering package, although he does have to be unwrapped by each of us who wishes to receive him.

Hope keeps me connected to God and to those I love, even to strangers half way around the world. Hope is another word for love and love links all people together. I am sister to starving children in Africa, mother to the dispossessed, daughter to the unloved or forgotten. We are family, especially at Christmas because Jesus came for all equally; we are all his children.

Christmas brings out the best and the worst in people. We rise to give love and we fall in despair, hurt, disappointed, isolated from those we love. Christmas reminds us of our severances, pushing it to the forefront of our minds. We feel our separation and the loneliness we shoved back out of the way. We can't get away from it.

But Christmas is more than all these. It is a spirit, a calling of loveliness, of goodness, of beauty and agape love. Christmas is the coming of God into every darkness, bringing light. Even the vilest offender can receive Christmas. It will never be about the food or the presents, the famous chocolate fudge or Christmas carols. It will always be about God and humanity together in one place, in love, in peace.

I come willingly
to the manger,
to live the hope
you speak.
I come, not alone,
but with all the others,
my family,
your whole family,
and there is a space
for each of us,
at the front.
Caution us against
focusing on what
we want to receive
from others
and the disappointment
we sometimes experience
when we don't get it.
Open us to Christmas,
God with us.

Love always, Andrea