kazza_baby
Bluelighter
It is impossible to shake them off or shoo them away, these kids with their makeshift tambourines of softdrink lids and old, rusty nails. They barely hit the notes of the carols turned angry declamations but they continue to open their mouths and belt out, shriek, and squawk about the coming of Christmas and the lighting of lanterns. They rattle at our gate and insist on rewards or Christmas nothings. We hand them bills and plead for them never to come back but who are we fooling, they are again at the doorstep in no less than twenty minutes. They’ve been presenting their dusty hair, scrawny, brown shoulders, and misty eyes since the first of December.
There is something arid about the air in the house for the past week, as if an invisible sleuth had come to steal things slowly. Things are always in complete disarray: beds unmade, wrappers strewn all over the floor, lazy souls with weak attempts to retire from the computer, who would know if things were taken, vanished, gone missing? Perhaps the scary part about this secret theft is that the physical, the material, is unaffected. Only the spirit can feel the pangs of loss.
Year by year the pangs grow stronger, almost numbing. I’ve felt it. You’ve felt it. Yet when we look around, things have always been where they have been all along. The lights on the trees and the gifts beneath them. The table mantle, the scented candles, the Belen, the stockings, and the kitchen forever smelling of ham and pineapples. Every year they change not in meaning, only in color, decoration, and arrangement. But the spirit senses the sleuth that takes away, and so we sigh.
I guess I outgrew the Christmas folly when I realised there was no Santa Claus. As kids, we held on to the holidays for the joy and surprise of believing in something though unseen. And how fervently we believed. But isn’t that what Christian faith is all about? To believe in the story of Christmas, to hear the cries of that child born in a manger, to follow the star as the kings have followed—all these without living proof, without solid existence. I didn’t have to see the real Santa Claus for me to believe in him. Seeing images of his red suit and white beard was enough for me to hold on for ten years. In the same way, we don’t have to see God, the real God, yet all we have to do is believe. Around us are the signs. Do you see them? Do you hear them?
As a kid I had a secret. During Christmas I’d sneak in the living room when no one was looking and push the presents aside from underneath the tree. I’d lie down and stare up at the tree and the lights, the trimmings, the star or the angel, never looked so stunning. In silence, Christmas dazzled me and filled me with meaning unknown to words or gifts.
The doorbell slices through my thoughts and I am aware that I have to return myself and you to the world. I will have to deal with the kids and maybe just this once, truly listen. Maybe their eyes are misty because they believe. Today I feel wanting for the same enchantment and as I end this, maybe I will once again lie down beneath the tree and let it bestow its gifts. Faith is a choice. This year, I want to believe.
Our streetlights are being dimmed so the red and green lights could be seen better as they dance around gates and windows. Christmas isn’t dead. It just hasn’t resurrected.
There is something arid about the air in the house for the past week, as if an invisible sleuth had come to steal things slowly. Things are always in complete disarray: beds unmade, wrappers strewn all over the floor, lazy souls with weak attempts to retire from the computer, who would know if things were taken, vanished, gone missing? Perhaps the scary part about this secret theft is that the physical, the material, is unaffected. Only the spirit can feel the pangs of loss.
Year by year the pangs grow stronger, almost numbing. I’ve felt it. You’ve felt it. Yet when we look around, things have always been where they have been all along. The lights on the trees and the gifts beneath them. The table mantle, the scented candles, the Belen, the stockings, and the kitchen forever smelling of ham and pineapples. Every year they change not in meaning, only in color, decoration, and arrangement. But the spirit senses the sleuth that takes away, and so we sigh.
I guess I outgrew the Christmas folly when I realised there was no Santa Claus. As kids, we held on to the holidays for the joy and surprise of believing in something though unseen. And how fervently we believed. But isn’t that what Christian faith is all about? To believe in the story of Christmas, to hear the cries of that child born in a manger, to follow the star as the kings have followed—all these without living proof, without solid existence. I didn’t have to see the real Santa Claus for me to believe in him. Seeing images of his red suit and white beard was enough for me to hold on for ten years. In the same way, we don’t have to see God, the real God, yet all we have to do is believe. Around us are the signs. Do you see them? Do you hear them?
As a kid I had a secret. During Christmas I’d sneak in the living room when no one was looking and push the presents aside from underneath the tree. I’d lie down and stare up at the tree and the lights, the trimmings, the star or the angel, never looked so stunning. In silence, Christmas dazzled me and filled me with meaning unknown to words or gifts.
The doorbell slices through my thoughts and I am aware that I have to return myself and you to the world. I will have to deal with the kids and maybe just this once, truly listen. Maybe their eyes are misty because they believe. Today I feel wanting for the same enchantment and as I end this, maybe I will once again lie down beneath the tree and let it bestow its gifts. Faith is a choice. This year, I want to believe.
Our streetlights are being dimmed so the red and green lights could be seen better as they dance around gates and windows. Christmas isn’t dead. It just hasn’t resurrected.
