The true meaning of Christmas
4:30 p.m.,Dec. 18. I am cruising around the parking lot of King Kullen trying to find a parking spot. There are almost no shopping carts left outside, except all those abandoned in the lot itself, now blocking spaces where cars could park. Wherever backup lights indicate someone leaving, cars from both directions stop to claim the momentarily empty space, forcing all the cars behind each of them to halt. Inside, people are rushing around with their carts, traffic jams in all the aisles. Corners are dangerous places where fast pushers can easily collide as they meet.
4:10 p.m.,Dec. 19. Having resolved to do most of my shopping online, why did I force myself to join the backed-up traffic on Stewart Avenue, at the entrance to Roosevelt Field, and the prolonged search for another parking space in the mall? Heavy wind and sleet have now made the ramp to the third floor icy, and the traffic is so slow, it is hard to get traction even with front wheel drive. Why do I put up with this, enter into the chaos? I totally lack Christmas spirit or enthusiasm and am filled with very un-Christmassy thoughts and feelings. The loudspeakers proclaim “peace on earth, good will to man” and I struggle to keep at least a smidgin of equanimity, but all I really want to do is get out of the store, get off the street, and huddle in my house with my dogs. I really don’t think this is what Jesus became incarnate for…
5:12 p.m. As I leave Roosevelt Field, I see the temperature has dropped five degrees in the last fifteen minutes; the sleet is now snow. Traffic continues to be bumper to bumper. Horns honk. Wheels spin; tails sway. I notice the tension in my shoulders, hips, jaw.
A violin is playing on the radio, slowly, softly. Its strains are immediately breath-taking, the line itself is utterly engaging. I realize I’m holding my breath as I listen. Tears come to my eyes. The violin’s voice cuts through my tension, penetrates through the anxiety, the resentment, and reaches deep into my heart. It opens up that inner space in me which knows that peace and beauty and joy are the most real thing in all the world, opens that place which so easily gets buried and forgotten by the worries and stresses of everyday life. As it comes to an end, the announcer says it is the Mozart Adagio in E major, K.261.
As I drive into my snow-filled driveway, I realize this is what Christmas is all about: to bring home to us a sense of the utter beauty of which life is capable, the falling snowflakes, people buying gifts because they care about loved ones, inconveniencing themselves for a purpose, singing carols and songs about a different world, in tribute perhaps more to memories and dreams than to this moment, singing about peace even when war pervades, trying mightily to bring down to earth the promise that life is worth it, and will be worth it, even when you face mortgage foreclosure, children whose whereabouts are unknown, an empty place where your beloved once sat, what happens in the politics of the world.
Beauty and love deserve our very best, all the more when we don’t feel like it and things look dark and pointless.
