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dings of comfort and joy are eclipsed by the early darkening evenings just as it seems we can take the darkness no longer the longest day of the year signals our coming relief i love the thought my friend cheryl expressed last winter solstice since midsummer the days have grown shorter and shorter darker and darker but on this night we are reminded that even darkness has its limit every night after this there will be just a bit more light each and every evening i love that this day comes the week of christmas it gets darker and darker wendell berry observed and then jesus is born in your busyness and bustle of these last days before christmas remember the light is coming and the light has come posted on december 18 2020 december 18 2020 christmas tension sitting at a red light one rainy day in early november i jumped a little when i remembered that christmas 2020 is still on so much has been canceled postponed or modified this year so realizing christmas day was only a month away well it startled me almost as quickly though my thoughts careened in their usual trajectory when i contemplate this time of year in short i dread christmas i am in many ways afraid of it the christmas season is a tangled mess at once too much and not enough the momentum of the year barrels toward this day of gift giving and merry making retailers long for the financial sustenance of the season we hold out all year for the peace and joy that christmas supposedly brings after a long 12 months of rising action the story of the year culminates in one day that holds the climax falling action and conclusion of our annual tale alexander smith said christmas is the day that holds all time together but starting around thanksgiving christmas doesn t seem to be holding time together as much as i seem to be holding it together the darkness of winter the expectations of the holiday the busyness of the season the weight of the year s troubles i feel like a piece of overstretched elastic at the end of december as i m tugged between the gift buying the money spending the traveling and the annual frustration that no matter what time my mom starts snapping pictures on christmas morning i always look like i just rolled out of bed and never met a makeup palette it s all just too much the christmas season is at once too much and not enough at the same time it s not enough i crave simplicity at christmas long evenings staring into the lights on the tree glimpsing the last smears of pink and purple sunlight out the kitchen window feeling the warmth from a mug seep through my chilled fingers reminiscing about christmas mornings past when i gathered round the fragrant tree in an itchy flannel nightgown to open presents i d selected from the glossy pages of the sears wishbook but there never seems to be enough time for enough of that during christmas i might as well have a condo on mount crumpet because like the grinch who was ruled by fear of rejection i too am ruled by fear at this time of year fear that i won t have enough time to spend mulling my thoughts fear of not finding the perfect gifts fear of the dark evenings and icy roads fear of what contention might arise with family fear that some tragedy will pull the rug out from under me fear that the season we wait for all year won t live up to its hype of peace joy comfort and good will christmas has always been about a taut pull between hope and fear when christ was born the world had been waiting for its messiah for 4 000 years but at least in the waiting god had spoken through prophets then the prophecies and appearances all divine interaction stopped the world experienced 400 years of silence until one day a day like any other when the priest zechariah was on temple duty gabriel the angel appeared and offered the first words from jehovah in four centuries do not be afraid those comforting words heralded christ s coming as marvelously as the heavenly host singing glory to god in the highest do not be afraid gabriel told zechariah emmanuel is coming the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight o little town of bethlehem holds my favorite christmas carol lyrics in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight can you feel it in those lines the tension between darkness and light between hope and fear longing and despair weariness and relief those two lines of human experience stretching to meet at the corners of a manger artist lindsay sherbondy put it this way christmas is wide enough to hold big tensions of pain and peace joy to the world but sorrow for all that is still broken the tension of waiting and longing but knowing that christmas means that the messiah has come victory is his and someday all will be made right in jesus holy name colossians 1 17 says he is before all things and in him all things hold together though the world seems to be crumbling christ is holds all things together and he is holding us with everlasting arms he is working all things for good in his grace he is holding the lines of tension in this world and that means i can let go i don t have to ignore the world s brokenness to experience peace don t have to force perkiness to experience joy or turn my face from sorrow to accept comfort i can sit in the middle of all the tension because emmanuel has come to this messy middle he rules in the chaos and in the order in the beauty and ruin gladness and tears what lines of tension are you trying to hold this christmas can we trust that in his grace and might christ is holding it all together and holding us can we wait in the middle of fear and hope and know that he is with us can we hear the spirit say to us what gabriel said to zechariah 2 000 years ago do not be afraid emmanuel is come posted on december 12 2020 december 13 2020 showing up in drafty old living rooms i hear them coming now george mary is near tears of joy as she leads her husband to the living room it s a miracle a miracle seconds later chaos erupts in the bailey s drafty old house as the townspeople burst through the door there s mr martini trotting in with his mixing bowl full of change from the jukebox good old annie with her stash of divorce money for if ever she got a husband a teary eyed mrs hatch who has clearly forgiven mary for not marrying sam wainwright tom the codger who had wanted his money all 242 of it that dark day when the stock market crashed mrs davis is in the crowd too the lady who george had kissed for requesting 17 50 i d like to think she added a random amount to the table that night 8 62 or something like that there s mr gower emptying a pickle jar of cash after making the rounds on his charge accounts some unnamed grateful homeowner empties a flour tin of savings violet bick returns the bus fare george had slipped her in his office earlier that day even carter the bank examiner who d only wanted to spend christmas in elmira with his family pitches in the high school superintendent you know the portly old guy who couldn t beat em so he joined em in the swimming pool all those years ago drops some bills and change on the table and tells george i got the faculty all up out of bed the high school faculty were hardly the only people in town who had been awakened that night it was late when uncle billy pounded on their door tugging them from their cozy christmas eve slumber but they patted their pants pockets and unsnapped their change purses or reached in the top cabinet for tins and jars and deposited it all in the laundry basket the silly old fool was carrying isn t it wonderful uncle billy exclaims to mary as he dumps the collection on the table so many friends the last time this frenzy of townspeople were gathered around george they were asking him for money looking for someone to rescue them on that black thursday he had given them his hard earned honeymoon money this time they re bringing him their money isn t it wonderful so many friends mary did it george mary did it uncle billy trembles with excitement as he explains she told some people you were in trouble and then they scattered all over town collecting money they didn t ask any questions just said if george is in trouble count me in as the dollars and coins mound on the table ernie the cab driver calls for silence and reads mr gower cabled you need cash stop my office instructed to advance you up to 25 000 dollars stop hee haw and merry christmas sam wainwright what surplus 25 000 sam s offer could have covered the 8 000 deficit three times over the living room erupts in cheers mary cues mr martini to start pouring the wine janie seizes her chance to debut the song she d been plunking all evening and the crowd belts out hark the herald angels sing halfway through the first verse of their jubilation bert the cop announces harry bailey and in darts george s kid brother the war hero the man in whose shadow george had long labored whose success had been build on george s sacrifices he says a curious thing looks like i got here too late surely he doesn t mean he s too late to solve george s financial problem recently released from the military even as a commander he wouldn t have had the cash to pay what is the equivalent of almost 120 000 today harry explains that he left his celebratory banquet in dc as soon as he got mary s telegram mary knew george needed more than money he needed his friends and family to pull him out of his despair and back to the reality that no one in that town would have allowed george to go to jail over 8 000 that s why she called harry home why she invoked the townspeople to help george and that s why uncle billy exclaims isn t it wonderful so many faces wonderful that s the same word clarence the angel used in the graveyard when he tells george you see you really had a wonderful life wonderful because of all the faces in his life our presence means something if i had been in the crowd that evening i might have felt a little unnecessary among so many people even a little miffed that my sacrifice had been overshadowed by the generous offer from a millionaire i might have plucked my limp five dollar bill from the pile and pocketed it thinking old sam wainwright your rich friend old hee haw he s got your back with all these other friends what am i doing here and i might have retreated out into the snow and trudged home to my quiet house i wonder after cousin eustace had tallied each sticky penny and crumpled dollar bill how much sam really had left to pay the meager offerings of many often count as much as the bounty of one we sometimes miss out on encouraging others showing grace to others speaking life to others because we are afraid we cannot give the whole amount how can one kind word fight the deep darkness of the world what can one random act of kindness change how can my meager efforts ever budge the trajectory of someone s life and so we stay home we count our dollar bills then jam them back in our pockets because 8 isn t 8 000 if just sam s telegram had come through that evening george might have been relieved but he would have missed seeing the faces of so many friend willing to show up and confirm what clarence had said that each life touches another that no man is a failure who has friends our presence means something even when others in the room or around the world might seem smarter more attractive more financially stable more well spoken when others seem to have more to give the point is that we show up in the drafty old living rooms of people who need us bringing what we have to give whatever else we bring when we bring ourselves it s always enough posted on may 31 2020 may 31 2020 the canine connection i m sorry i heard my boss say over the phone due to hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic we have to lay you off until further notice when i hung up the phone the reality sank in though i had already been working from home three days a week now i was isolated from my coworkers entirely and facing full time quarantine with my housemate laura and dachshund dudley since the weather was balmy the next day we decided to explore the neighborhood we d moved to last winter laura and i doubled our stride to keep up with dudley as he led us up the sidewalk on the first walk of spring all the coronavirus quarantine news hadn t fazed the little dog his hind end wiggled excited and determined he had a neighborhood to inspect dogs to meet yards to mark we found that nearly every house in the neighborhood has a dog in the yard next to us hank a labradoodle the color of a hershey bar galloped around in that clunky way of overgrown puppies his fluffy back legs making him look as if he were wearing pants on the other side of our house a boxer the color of red clay trotted over to the fence his name is sancha the little neighbor girl told us then looking down at dudley she added he doesn t like little dogs he likes to bite them we smiled but pulled dudley away from the fence gertrude a graying dachshund across the street nipped at us when we stopped to meet her she s old her owner linda said but she s sassy all the talk the squabbling joking griping had gotten to me up the sidewalk dudley trotted stopping now and then to drizzle his mark on the territory a message to other dogs like a facebook post facebook i had deleted my facebook app earlier that day all the talk the squabbling joking griping had gotten to me i didn t know what to think of the pandemic and quarantine but i was tired of hearing about it everyone was talking about staying connected during the quarantine but i had found myself receding into isolation but dudley simply wanted to connect with the other dogs he smelled along our walk and other dogs also wanted to reach out to dudley ooouf oouf a dog barked at us through an opened window only its eyes visible through the slats of the blinds across the road a small black and white mutt called in a high pitched woooooo as if he d forgotten the f on the end of woof dudley turned his head to look as we walked by farther up the way a dog poked his head around a bush from the backyard looking for all the world like snoopy i half expected to see a little yellow bird sitting atop a red dog house in the backyard but the dog never barked just watched as we walked by as dudley charged on a deep bark broke the silence and we looked to see an enormous dog standing with its front paws up on the slatted fence looking very much like a small bear we looked to see an enormous dog looking very much like a small bear boy he looks scary i said to laura reckoning that the big dog could probably finish dudley off in two bites if he had the appetite i hope he can t jump the fence we hurried by not wanting to rile the dog and test his fence jumping skills at the corner we were startled by a ferocious roar a brindled mutt came charging toward us on the other side of a fence his fur raised on his shoulders so that he looked more like a hyena than a ...