On the Spiritual Journey
 I admit it. I am bah humbug about winter. When the first snow fell this week all I could do was worry about driving on ice. The sun doesn’t shine enough and the cold weather doesn’t agree with my digits. My fingers and toes don’t thaw out until spring. Furthermore, trying to take walks on slick gravel roads is treacherous. Surely evident, my attitude of optimism diminishes in direct proportion to the waning daylight!
G.K. Chesterton gives us the cure for my ailment: “The best way to shorten winter is to prolong Christmas.”
It’s working. I am getting the Christmas spirit! On the way home from work last night I found myself singing holiday songs along with the radio. I crested the driveway to see the huge star David made and hung across the house top, its white lights brightly shining as if guiding all the magi in the valley to the stable.
David is catching the spirit too. Yesterday he brought home a Christmas tree after firmly stating for several weeks, “We are not putting up a tree this year.” He wasn’t being the Grinch, it’s just that we will be in Colorado for Christmas and it’s not sensible to put up a tree and then take it down before leaving. But gosh I’m glad it’s up. There’s something mystical about a Christmas tree in the room that lightens my step; that shortens winter!
The snow on the ground is picturesque and I begin to think about wrapping the presents hidden away in secret pockets of the house. In our family’s tradition, presents never go under the tree until Santa visits after midnight Mass. Regardless, in this sentimental mood I find myself in, I want to decorate the tree and place the brightly wrapped gifts underneath it; carefully arranging the packages so that those with the blue snowflake paper alternate with those wrapped in red Santa paper and green holly paper.
I want to dust off White Christmas and It’s A Wonderful Life and snuggle down with family to watch them back-to-back. I want to bake Christmas cookies and write cards to everyone on my list. I want to do nice things for others.
Perhaps Chesterton’s insight about prolonging Christmas is simply a prescription to do nice things, to give of ourselves. The music and star and lights and tree and presents are simply symbols that kindle our spirit of love for one another. They take us back to the stable, where Mary is giving birth to Jesus, our Savior, who gives all of Himself to us in pure love.
Humbled and in awe, I consider that we created the symbols of Christmas after Christ came so that we would be reminded of His presence year-round. Chesterton was one of the wise men.
And so I pray: Dear Lord, let my heart be filled with the desire to receive the gift of Christ and return His gift through loving others. Let me prolong Christmas.
©2011, E. Jane Rutter |
