I want to take a moment to wish a merry Christmas to my fellow bloggers here at W4 (even to the missing Zippy, who is never forgotten), and to all the readers thereof, since, for the rest of today and tomorrow, I intend to recline in the bosom of family, as we offer thanksgiving for the Savior's birth. I wish I had something profound to say about the Incarnation, but I don't. It's such a small and ordinary thing - a baby, conceived out of wedlock and born to parents of straitened circumstance - yet so fills the heart it's almost too big for words. He, without whom "was not anything made that was made", takes flesh in his mother's womb and makes the world, in its old age, new again. Now you know indeed that every hair of your head is numbered, that the intricate machinery of every cell in your body, and every thought of your mind, and supplication of your heart is present (and precious) to His own. Now you know that your life's worth, from beginning to end, finds its promise confirmed in Bethlehem. Infinity in flesh wrapped round, He was born to die, to be put to death by his own children. Thus melancholy must ever be joy's companion in this season, this life, as the cross hangs over the manger. This seems a good moment to remember the millions of nativities that never were - that never escaped the darkness of the womb; to remember the lost and the lonely, and all those whose circumstances, like the Holy Family's, are desperate; and to say a prayer engendered by the hope of the Incarnation, that something will change, that someone's misery will have an end.
It often seems that the light of His coming flickers ever more faintly in a faithless and miserable world, but we must also remember that the image of a mother and child can change that world. It already has, else why do you celebrate?
God bless you every one.
Comments (7)
Amen. The light shined in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Merry Christmas, Bill.
Posted by Lydia | December 24, 2010 4:37 PM
Beautiful meditation, Bill. A blessed Christmas to you and yours, all here at W4.
Posted by Beth Impson | December 24, 2010 4:55 PM
Same to you ladies.
Posted by Bill Luse | December 24, 2010 5:29 PM
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Posted by Paul J Cella | December 24, 2010 6:26 PM
A happy and blessed Christmas to all.
Posted by Rob G | December 24, 2010 10:56 PM
I've always felt more inspired by the death of Socrates, than by the birth of Christ.
Posted by Alex Leibowitz | December 25, 2010 6:06 PM
Still, I like to think there is something good, in people enjoying what they think is good, even if I am not certain that it is good. It is good that people want to enjoy what is good, anyway, and so I salute the desire, and join you in hoping that we all enjoy or come to enjoy what is good.
Posted by Alex Leibowitz | December 25, 2010 6:11 PM