ST. MARK'S FEBRUARY 2012 MESSENGER
We finally repacked and put away all the Christmas decorations and reordered the house. Finally. This is always a sad time for me because I do so love the Christmas-Epiphany Season and the way transforming the house seems to bring about an inner transformation as well. It feels like a yearly invitation into a mystical realm of beauty that restores my soul.
This year Peter’s usual banter about doing a good cleaning out (i.e. “throwing away!”) decorations that we rarely use anymore gave me more pause than normally, and so I spent some time gathering into one large tub all the things that have become frayed or broken and no longer quite useable. And so I take an inventory:
There are lots of children’s books, once read aloud – some with great excitement and others in hushed voices – their pages creased now and spines more than a bit loose. And there are the first ornaments I ever bought that first Christmas I was away from home – no way to hang them anymore. There’s the garland and little Santa vase from the Christmas 5 year old Christopher spent in the hospital with his arm in traction; and those special decorations from 8 year old Allison’s hospital Christmas. There are ornaments I had made for the children and those we had made together; and ones they made for me at school and at church. Some were gifts from dear friends and family. Many of the special ones over the years each of the children have taken for their own trees, but much remains and with it all, there are the memories – some still fraught with pain, many filled with deep joy.
As I ponder what to do with these precious yet not too useable treasures, there seems to be a faintly visible light enveloping the heart wrenching contents of this container. As I lean closer, I hear a soft sound, like a whispered prayer, as the awareness comes to me that the Light of Christ has indeed come into the world and even now is holding all of my life’s treasured events and moments, all my heart’s beloved, treasured people, enfolding each of them gently and safely within the eternity of God’s own loving embrace. So… wow! - so they will never be lost – not to me, not lost to time nor space nor to love. And within God’s sacred embrace, in the eye of my heart, I see them restored – all shiny and new and whole. Well, maybe I can let them go. Maybe…next year, I think I’ll be ready! PBB+
