Wednesday Wonder – December 6, 2023

No time! No time! No time!

That seems to be the mantra this time of year. Everyone is rushing around trying to get everything, whatever that may mean, done. Full disclosure, I used to be someone who used that mantra. What with having to have everything ready both at home and at church, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. But a few years ago, I realized it was time to let go of the angst of the season.

I used to be someone who prided myself on having the house decorated and the present shopping completed early. I still start my Christmas shopping in July, but only because sometimes on vacation you see something you just know would be perfect for someone on your list. So, I get it. However, I do my very best to remember I have bought it and where I put it.

This is the first Christmas without my mom. She was notorious for shopping early and putting things away for safekeeping. Great, but then she would forget she bought it, or where she put it. The best part of Christmas was during the couple of weeks after Christmas as we kept finding the things mom forgot about. It became a tradition as the last gift was opened on Christmas morning to look at mom and ask her where we should start looking for the things she forgot to put out. She was still doing it last year. When I went to visit during the first week of January she handed me several things to deliver to my family that she had forgotten to put in the package she sent before Christmas. I’m going to miss that little game. Although, truth be told, I have been known to be guilty of the same thing. And maybe this year, I will do it on purpose with my own family. Just to remember my mom.

When we slow down, we have a better chance to remember where we are at, with everything. When we slow down, we can be more thoughtful about the gifts, the events, the reason for the season. When we slow down, we make room for the Spirit to enter our Christmas.

My favourite time is when everyone else is in bed or downstairs wrapping the last present, and I am finished with Christmas Eve services. I sit in a darkened room with only the lights of the Christmas tree and take a deep breath. No music, no distractions, just me and the tree. And God breaks through in that quiet moment. Then it is Christmas. Then my soul becomes infused with the Spirit God offers on that holy night.

We all love the carol, Silent Night. But that first Christmas was probably quite noisy with animals in the stable, a crowded city teeming with people come to register for the census, and the sounds of childbirth, which is never quiet. But it is often in the quiet, like Mary hopefully found as her newborn son drifted off to sleep, that we can find the time to truly enter into the peace and joy of what Christmas is all about.

So, we have time. When we stop to take a deep breath in the midst of the chaos that is the lead up to Christmas, we find the time. Time stands still as we take a step back a couple of millenia to a similar time, where in the midst of it all, it was the quiet that signaled – God is with us.

Peace,
Rev. Mary-Jane