Πρίν λίγο διάβασα αυτό το πολύ ωραίο post και θέλω να το μοιραστώ μαζι σας.
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Το ακριβές άρθρο θα το βρείτε εδώ.
Εγώ το παραθέτω εδώ για ευκολία - και όπως πάντα σας κάνω highlight τα σημεία που βρίσκω ενδιαφέροντα!!!
Enjoy:
One of the serious
responsibilities of parenthood is pulling off Christmas. If you have a little
posse of kids you already know what I am talking about.
Weeks and weeks of
mad-dashing and shopping and wrapping and brainstorming and decorating and
planning and pouring eggnog and peeling baggy oranges and unsticking
candy-canes from table tops and carpets and the bottom of hot chocolate mugs.
Frantically realizing that you failed to mail packages in time, or that you
forgot to order in time for free shipping, or that you still haven’t done the
gingerbread house kit with the kids, and that you’ve even managed to fall four
days behind on the Advent calendar.
Then there are all the things
that you are trying to do differently than last year — the things learned from
unfortunate experience. Correcting gift imbalances. Learning what kinds of
stocking stuffers actually survive past Christmas afternoon.
And, of course, you are stressing
yourself out with what seems like completely unnecessary work. Who wanted to
sew everyone new pajamas in the first place? Who thought we should be knitting
the Christmas stockings? Why is it after midnight and I am still up making
caramels? What is the point of messing around with a real tree, with lights,
with sick amounts of baking?
On top of this, basic parenting
through the Christmas season can be a real minefield, too. Sometimes the kids
start being greedy, sometimes things that you wanted to be special aren’t even
noticed. Sometimes no one wants to sing Christmas carols around the dinner
table.
Not Exactly a Catalog Shot
Christmas comes to the real families
of this real world. Often, it doesn’t look like a catalog shot, but more like a
blooper reel. Turkeys burn. Gravy clots into lumps. Presents that you thought
came with batteries didn’t. You end up presenting someone’s gift in a garbage
bag. Kids might get grabby around the Christmas tree. People might not like the
gift you thought they would like, and they can even be too tired to pretend.
Headaches know no seasonal bounds. Life happens.
This is why we have all heard
people talk about Christmas like we all just need to get a grip. Where has our
spirituality gone that we are worrying about a holiday five weeks in advance?
Real Christians would celebrate quietly around the fire with some spiritual
reflections, perhaps some small handmade token, or just a loving smile. There
would have been no stress in that Christmas, only calm. There would be a
sensibly portioned meal with no excess of pie or fudge or stray cookie
platters. There would be some restraint. What are we really teaching our
children about holy days? And why are we apparently so willing to float down
the raging stream of our consumerist culture?
The Earth-Shaking Magic
I certainly support the variety
of traditions that people use to celebrate Christmas, but there is one very
important part of Christmas that is all too often overlooked, and it applies to
everyone. Brace yourselves. . . .
Christmas is the ultimate
celebration of the material. Because Christmas is the time when God
became man. Word to Flesh. Unfettered spirit to the hazards and joys and
stresses of physical life. Think about it. Some people want to filter the
material out of Christmas and morph it into some pure ethereal spirit religious
day. And some people want to filter all the spiritual out of it and make it
simply a holiday celebrating the purchasing power of plastic. But the power of
Christmas is when spiritual and material meet. And it always has been. That is
the joy of the season, that is the good news, that is the laughter and the
paradox and the earth-shaking magic of Christmas. The infinite Word became a
physical baby.
It wasn’t like that first
Christmas was a time of quiet reflection. Mary and Joseph were on a huge
last-minute trip. And she’s big pregnant on a donkey? Think of it. It sounds
like the worst travel experience of all time. No room. No bed. No privacy. Baby
coming. Not just any baby either — one Mary knew was the Messiah. Angels?
Shepherds dropping in? You think she felt dressed for that? I doubt Mary had
time to throw together a cheese platter. She was in a barn, forced to place the
King of kings — her Lord — in a trough. And I doubt her livestock roommates
were quite as cute as they look in the storybooks.
The truth is, that’s what it’s
like when the Spiritual becomes Material. When God became Man. It’s not easy,
because it turns the world upside down, a true cataclysm of joy.
If We Lose Sight
Our celebrations aren’t supposed
to be smooth, effortless bits of quiet either. They should be as big and as
glorious and as spiritual and as physical as we can make them.
Clearly, the attitude with which
everything is done is important. If the house is full of physical holiday
cheer, but Mom is yelling about the snow boots by the door, the blending has
not been complete. If Christmas dinner turns out beautifully, but no one wants
to be together, something has gone wrong. But the remarkable thing is that
doing it all wrong, having bad attitudes, and resenting the work will not
affect the power of Christmas at all. The neighbors throwing money at their
children and resenting each other will not slow down anything.
That first Christmas was enough
for all time, and no amount of fussing from us about all the busy work will
slow it down. We can give each other stink-eyes all day long, and the world
will just go on being transformed. The only thing that we can actually damage
by losing sight of the point of Christmas is our children.
We Are Christmas to Our Children
Because what we do on Christmas
is an acted out statement of faith. To our children, we are Christmas.
We are their memories. We are the story. We are acting out both the surprised
shepherds in the fields with their problems and squabbles and regular lives,
and also the heavenly host that came to them singing, “Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.”
We can’t
stop being the shepherds this side of glory, and God doesn’t want us to. He
wants us to be the shepherds the whole way through that story.
Listening,
fearing, following, worshiping. We are bringing our children alongside us as
we come in out of our worldly fields, smelling like sheep, to fall at the feet
of an infant king in a trough, beside livestock and an exhausted teenaged
mother. This is what Christmas is all about. So stay up past twelve making
fudge, and do it laughing. Revel in the candy-cane carnage and sap and shopping
and crunchy pine-needles in the carpet. Show your children that we serve the
Word made Flesh.
Ελπίζω να σας άρεσε και εσάς! Θα χαρώ να μοιραστείτε τις σκέψεις σας με εμένα!
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