A Remote Christmas

A Remote Christmas

It was perfect today. My wife and I were alone, dinner had been
eaten, and the beloved family were hundreds of miles away.
We love them dearly, but today we did not miss them. We
loved the quiet, the finemusic on the DMX, the warmth inside,
the good reading from my recliner chair (I'll tell you the book
if you ask) and the time to reflect that there is love wherever one
is, if one takes time to absorb it. The peace was tangible, the
sense of gratitude, suddenlyprofound. I do not credit my own
spirituality for that, but I do thankfully credit an spirit of
acceptance that says that is what communion with God is all
about...a taking of the moment, breathing it, and finding that
loving all that is, can be a simple thing if it is simply permitted
to be. The God part was not out of meditation, or worship, or
even gratitude, but merely experiential for its own sake. It
required no creed, no sense of duty, no falling upon the knees,
and certainly not any relics of childhood or even faith, to grasp it.

No football games were on at my house. There were no little
ones to discipline (though that too, is lovely), no Christmas
wrap mess to clear away, and not many dishesto wash. But,
yes, for this former Christian who pried God off his throne,
demoted Jesus from his scapegoat sonship, and derided the
nobility of intentional sacrifice, I duly noted that love had
seeped into the room, the path that Jesus illumined still
showed the way, and the God that the centuries were seeking,
still filled my heart. For an iconoclast like me, that was enough
of a miracle, though not unexpected, to overflow the remainder
of my days on planet Earth.
~