c. 2006 Religion News Service
INDIANAPOLIS _ At my father’s retirement center, “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” with twinkly lights, decorated trees, red and green ribbons decking the halls, visiting carolers, and Christmas sweaters on the ladies.
All that’s missing is the rest of it: far-flung children, young again and giggling beside fresh-cut trees; cookies baking in once-beloved kitchens; trips downtown to admire department store windows; and filling an entire pew at church.
I came across five residents seated together in a lobby beside an artificial tree, making the best of this new Christmas that is quite unlike “the ones (they) used to know.” They waved a cheery greeting. It takes courage to grow old.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers dream of being “home for Christmas,” while politicians who assiduously avoided military duty themselves plan exactly the opposite. Back home, their families awaken to the emptiness of Mom or Dad missing.
It takes courage to live here, too, where the brave hope to survive the tin-star bravado of political leaders while their families make do with substandard housing. At the same time hedge-fund managers _ recently awarded more income-tax breaks _ drink $8,000 bottles of wine, drive $300,000 cars and throw lavish parties for themselves.
In Colorado, some of our newest fellow Americans are reeling from the Christmas present visited upon them by immigration and customs officials, who tore families apart with raids at meat-packing plants to prevent undocumented immigrants from working one more day in this nation of immigrants.
It takes courage to build a new life in a nation where people descended from immigrants now demand walls and officials prevent husbands and wives from kissing each other goodbye.
Rather than turn away from these pockets of sadness and courage while pursuing Christmas cheer, we should see in them the heart of this holy season.
Before they became marble statues, Joseph and Mary were a brave young couple who agreed to serve God at a time when most everyone else was serving himself or herself. Before they became the reason for the commercial season, the gift-bearing wise men were brave pilgrims who left behind everything they knew in order to follow God’s star. Before they inspired sweet carols, shepherds gaped in awe as heaven touched down on their lonely hillside.
Even now, sadness and courage walk together. Ask your pastor what it is like to serve at Christmas season, putting on best-ever events while bearing the grief and stress that erupt this time of year. Ask your parents how they deal with year-end work, mounting debts, wanting you to have a sweet holiday, and wishing they could taste again the cookies their moms used to make.
Talk to the young who flood the airports in search of childhood homes that they hope aren’t completely left behind. Talk to newlyweds trying to merge Christmas expectations in new homes, while wishing they could be in yesterday’s nest one more time. Talk to the newly divorced who cannot hide from the cost of attempting fresh starts.
Talk to the Mexican who cleans your hotel room, the Honduran who cooks your food, the Somali who picks your vegetables, about how it feels to be poor, unwanted and yet exploited in the “land of the free.”
It takes courage to see any of this sadness, and it requires a capacity for sadness to see any of this courage. But what better way to greet the dawning of God’s new age.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)
KRE/PH END EHRICH
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