LIGHTED CHRISTMAS TREE
Robert Trabold
Dim dark room – full
of mystery
Christmas tree
soft lights – varied
colors
gentle yellow – clean
white – stronger red – deep blue
a few twinkling ones
-
light covered with
mystery and silence.
I bath myself in soft
light –
silence - quiet.
Beauty touches me –
whispering the mysterious -
will not leave me.
I sit in the quiet –
dreaming in beauty.
Someone is knocking
at the door -
in the soft - gentle
loveliness -
mysterious presence –
my Beloved -
beautiful - good –
more than the soft light of the tree.
He gives me hope –
soft light of the tree
penetrates darkness.
My Beloved will not
leave me alone in the night - cold.
He calls me to hope –
not to lose heart.
Beauty of the lights
is stronger than darkness.
CHRISTMAS SEASON
Robert Trabold
Living in the industrial world as in
the United States, the Christmas season can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, we are battered by our
commercially orientated culture with its mania for Black Friday and the many
sales that are being presented. It is
sad to say that as soon as Halloween is over, the decorations for that
celebration give way to pictures of Santa Claus, red decorations in the stores
highlighting what is on sale and Christmas candy. Radio, TV and the internet
are flooded with news of sales. Retailers are competing with Amazon trying to
outdo each other with discounts on the many items.
While we have to live in the above,
there is another current that is present in Advent and the weeks following the
Christmas feast. If we listen carefully
to the nativity story, it is full of symbols of the night, light shining in the
darkness, shepherds watching their sheep in the quiet of the night and
mountains, angels appearing in the sky announcing and singing of a newborn
savior, three magi arriving from afar and flowing a star in the heavens, child
born in humble surroundings in a stable and laying in a manger. These symbols
and stories lead us into another direction from the noise and clamor of the
commercialism around us. The whole story is bathed in the darkness and night
which are symbols of mystery and the unknown. But the night does not dominate
all because there is light and angels appearing in the light singing and
announcing good news. The shepherds themselves are marginal people to main
stream society and live and work in the mountains exposed to the day and night
and the vagaries of the weather. They lead their sheep high into the hills and
can look vast distances into the beauties of nature. Angels are not human
beings but messengers from another world who want to tell us something. Out of
the blue appear three kings from faraway lands in the east. They are following
a star in the heavens which is announcing the birth of a new king. Strange also
is that they find this child, a new
king, not in the palaces of Jerusalem but born of a poor family and the baby is
lying in a manger in a stable surrounded by his humble parents and the animals of
the place. This Christmas story then in loaded with symbols and events which
are quite different from the noise of our commercial culture. We are lead into
another world of signs and mystery that is deeper from our ordinary life and wants
to transform our way of living and that of the world.
As we progress in the Christmas
season, we are careful not to be overwhelmed by the commercial culture of our
world but to step back and take a look at the deep symbols of the nativity
story and to see how they want to orientate our life. This means that despite
our many activities of this season, we take time out to experience the deeper
meanings of this religious event and what it means for ourselves and our world.
We enter into the darkness and the light that is shining in it. We slow down
our activities as the mania for presents and gifts subside. We are faithful to our two periods of
contemplation each day so that we can understand more and feel the deeper
meanings of the coming of Christ. We keep an eye on the shepherds who were
marginal and poor people and because of their limited income did not have many
things of the world. It is a signal that we have to cultivate a distance and
indifference from material things and not let them dictate how we live. Our
silent contemplation can help us achieve this goal. To enter in the deeper
meanings of the nativity story, we need not be too busy. We look at our
schedule and many activities and cut away what may been unnecessary so that we
have time to breathe and absorb what the Christmas stories are telling us. This
can be a challenge because we have many modern communication devices and these
are always bombarding us with messages, some important, others not at all. We
need a dimension of silence and quiet so that we can hear the hidden messages
of the nativity. We cannot be too busy and so not enter into the other and
deeper side of this lovely time.
As I mentioned at the beginning of
this article, the Christmas season is a mixed bag and we have to sort out what
is really important. Our modern commercial world does not always make this very
easy. We however have to try. The deep symbols of the nativity narrative are
knocking at our door. Let us use the time of our contemplation which is one of
silence and quiet and a reduced schedule to open ourselves to the messages that
the baby Jesus wants us to receive at this time of his birth. We then orientate
ourselves to the deeper meanings of our religious faith which will also help us
lead a more authentic and deeper Christ-like life in the New Year.
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