Today is the day after Christmas. It is a holiday, since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year. It is interesting to see the world slowing down a bit--after the frantic commercialism and glitter in the weeks precedeing Christmas, the media is taking a deep breath. Granted, people are taking advantage of the gift cards they recieved for Christmas, but it seems like a lot of that is happening online. Even without the climax of the "big day" being over, you can only operate on adrenaline for so long, and then you need to rest. That is what the days after Christmas are for...to rest, to celebrate rebirth, and to make plans for the new year. No matter how much dicipline one exerts to experience a holy Advent, it is very hard to escape the pressures that the outside world exerts. I was less cynical this year, throughout the entire season, than I have been in recent years. In my last blog entry, which was the day after Thanksgiving, I laid out how I thought things might be different this year in the context of thankfulness. My predictions turned out to be true.
Looking backwards now, the "holiday season" (which really is Thanksgiving-Chanukah-Solstice-end of year-economic belwether-birth of Christ-Christmas-St Nicholas Day-Boxing Day-Kwanzaa-New Year's-Epiphany)is a very complex time. It is filled with themes of culture and counterculture, expectation and disappointment, joy and grief, peace and conflict, Gabriel and Michael, John and Jesus, The Wise Men and Herod. The people who proclaim "Jesus is the reason for the Season" don't understand. Jesus is being reborn in our hearts all the time, every time we repent and turn to Him. He does not need a season, which is probably historically inaccurate anyway. Even those who are not of the belief system which confesses Christ as Savior, Man and God;celebrate the season, if even just on a secular level. The themes of the season which are about God's incarnation in our midst, of peace and joy, of repentence, of love; those are things we need to be mindful of all the time.
On this peaceful day in this season of light breaking into the darkness, I pray that we may always hold on to that precious and esoteric thing called hope which overcomes every adversity, and that God's present may be his presence in our midst today and every day.
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