Today is November 15 and I heard my first Christmas carol on the radio. But, much unlike the past years, I didn’t turn quickly to another channel. I welcomed the carol and sang along. “Well, there’s no place like home for the holidays . . .” This year I am so ready for it to be Christmastime in Spirit, in Good Will, in change of season and in attitude. Another song says it all for me: “Yes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute.”
Outlook in life lately has been harsh – impeachment hearings for our president, smear campaigns, deceptions, foreign country meddling, and then fires in California, where trees, vegetation, homes, belongings and lives are being lost, another school shooting today at a football game, our young people dying from vaping, more humans are trying to enter our country while being pushed out, separated from their children and pleading to stay, the pipeline continues to bang away 12 or more hours a day, while residents are suffering from all the noise and contaminated water, mental, physical, spiritual illness abound in our families and communities, brokenness seems the norm.
We need Christmas, not the gifts so much, our houses and lives already full of stuff, but the Good News, the lion and lamb lying down together, a newborn ruler of the world who reigns with love and peace, stars which all line up and point the way to hope, a visit from God to Earth, a reason to believe in miracles, a place where joy is not postponed until a better time, Good Will is the abundant gift of the day, and the whole world sleeps in tranquil safety, and the simplicity of life in a manger where all the animals and people dwell together is the reality of life.
Yes, I do believe we need Christmas now. So let the carols play and Handle’s Messiah be sung over and again. Let the snowballs fly and the cookies bake, and a child ask, “Is there a Christmas?” and may our answer be, “Yes, Dear Virginia, there is!”
