Ever since I started working in Academia, Christmas seems to sneak up on me like a mugger. Finals finished on the 13th, grades were due on the 20th, and here we are, less than a week later, and Christmas is here. It seems I hardly get to enjoy it much anymore with the paperwork, the meetings, and the things I have to close up before I leave. Of course, some of that I chose to do, and I try to get ahead when I can on gifts as early as possible, but it never seems to be as pleasant as I remember as a child. It seems rushed, and it seems forced, and it seems to be over all too soon. At the end of the day, I mostly collapse after catching up on work and then I fall asleep early before I can really do much. It wasn't until Wednesday night that I even thought about decorating and hung up lights and wrapped the gifts that have sat in my bedroom for weeks. It's finally Christmas, and I finally get a little peace. Some of the peace comes all year long in little pieces, but I start to think on it a little more in the evenings as winter dawns an Christmas approaches. Particularly this year, I started thinking about older Christmases, when I liked it a lot more, and I spent more time pondering than I usually do about things I had, things I thought I had, and things I wanted to find. I think about the reason for the season and how He said, "My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you", and I find that it's true, and it's not the ways I expected.
This season, as with most, Christ blesses us with peace of mind. For my own part, there is only one decision I ever made that festers in my brain, but that's the point of Christ's atoning sacrifice. He came to take upon Himself the sins of all those who repent and refrain from repeating the offense. SO even for everyone who makes mistakes or repeatedly rebels, there is hope for a peace of mind, a peace of soul, and peace in your heart through Christ. During class I try to impress upon my students the importance of honest, accurate information because of the implications on decisions tht we make. Some of the chapters of our lives close despite our best efforts. Captain Picard reminded us in Star Trek that it is possible to make the best decisions and still lose without it being a character flaw. Other people get to choose too. Sometimes we are not as choice to them as we'd like to be. Sometimes they make other choices. Christ's atoning sacrifice swallows up that pain too, because if we do our part, it will be with us in the final accounting as if everything had worked out as we hoped. And, when we don't do our best or sometimes when we do our worst, because Christ was born, there was a sacrificial lamb on whom our sins can be scapegoated, leaving us unblemished if we truly mean our penitence. That can give us peace of mind, that mistakes are always attended with mercy.
I spend a lot of time each Christmas in quiet contemplation and prayer because I live alone. After I tire of the unrealistic and sappy Hallmark Holiday movies, as I sit in the evening, I pray. This year, I even hung up lights on my house for the first time since I was divorced, and I sat on the porch briefly basking in the glow of His light and thought. In previous years, I have driven neighborhoods or more often walked around looking at lights and talking with God. When I pray, I don't feel chastisement. I feel more like He understands. I know Christ knows what it's like to be alone. Like Him, I spend most of my Christmases with my parents. Like Him, I've been betrayed by false friends. I think about old Christmases, like a Christmas for Carole, and about my years in Europe. I think about how I felt outside the Oberndorf chapel where "Silent Night" was first performed for guitar and what it was like walking the back alleys of old Salzburg looking for souveniers from Austria and for that first Christmas abroad making straw stars to hang from the tree. I never really felt nostalgic for Austria before, but I find at Christmas that, without anyone else in my life, my heart belongs there. At that time, I was a missionary and spent my days and weeks preaching about Christ, and it was a good time, a peaceful time, despite the heartaches, disappointments, and struggles I faced. I remember hearing the bells on Christmas Day. I remember winter nights in the snow, and I find I miss that. I also find that I feel Christ's approbation for most of my life, and that gives me peace.
Despite my bellyaching, I consider at Christmas on the peaceable and blessed state of my life. I had the chance to reach out and help some people I know who are not so fortunate this year. My best friend got divorced, and he's unemployed, so he's barely squeaking by. My local friend closed up his parents' estate and moved away, but he's essentially homeless, so we still talk when we can, and I have two rooms in my house full of his belongings. I have all my limbs and faculties, money left over after the bills are paid every month for emergencies or fun, and I live in America. Even one of the facilities people I met who originally hails from England told me he came here because of greater opportunities. My next door neighbor is getting his house foreclosed and must move sometime in the spring, so I looked him up, and I found that he earns less than I do and may have obligations to TWO former wives and their kids Oida! Maybe I'm not receiving the blessings I like. Maybe I haven't been on a date for over two years and maybe I'm not tenured yet and maybe I don't have close friends who live here, but that doesn't mean I am not blessed. In fact for years, I've told people there are only two things about my life that I would change, and I don't think I know many if any who can say their lives are that well off. I'm not swimming in money or friendships or rewards from work or opportunities for love, but I have already lived beyond the wildest dreams of almost all of my progenitors, and I know it. That gives me peace. It's also very comforting to have enough for myself as well as enough to share with others who are in need.
Sometimes when people talk about peace at Christmas, they aim for the stars instead of looking into their own backyards. They assume it means that we'll all sit around perfectly equal, perfectly happy, singing kumbiyah and blissfully ignorant of other opportunities. Instead of looking for the entire package, sometimes it helps at Christmas to consider the small things. The kids who benefit from Toys For Tots are happy to just get a present. The homeless people at Carey and Las Vegas Blvd are happy for a bowl of soup and a fresh pair of socks. People who are alone are happy that people talk to and visit them. The sick are grateful for every gesture that hospital staff can make. It's not enough, and it's not the same, but it's something, and it's more than most people do any other time of the year. Perhaps sthe most important thing is WHY we do it. As part of our belief as Christians, we think about and emulate the Savior, and at Christmas we try a little harder than at other times of the year to act like it and spread the joy and peace of the season to people other than ourselves and to consider all the gifts we receive before the 25th. Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings which shall be unto all people. Good tidings of peace, from that silent night, that holy night. It was a time when Mary and Joseph were grateful for all the things they did have, that they'd finally found a place for her to give birth. It was a time when they communed with the heavens and felt of God's love and approbation as they brought His son into the world. It was a time when the Messiah long foretold finally came to free men, to throw off the shackles of oppression, to give hope to all whatever their burden and ease their lives and minds. His peace I give unto you, this Christmas, and always. Merry Christmas.
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