Putting Christmas "away," but not really...

3 January 2021: Took down and put away all of the Christmas decorations today (except the outside lights, which I'll do later this week). It seemed to go more quickly this year (probably because I put fewer things out) and it is sort of nice to have everything look clean and normal again, but it's also (always) depressing work. Feels a bit like Christmas didn't really happen. I don't mean in a spiritual sense--I've thought more about the meaning of the Nativity and the Word made flesh more this year than in some time. Rather, of course, I mean Christmas didn't happen in the sense of traditions, family, friends...

I still have my parents' presents, all wrapped and waiting for them. Seeing them sitting in the living room is just a downer. Our eventual gift exchange will probably feel like a poor simulacrum of Christmas. And Lord help me, it's just so hard to know that it didn't have to be this way. That we could have done better to fight this pandemic. That we have failed so miserably. And that my silly sadness about Christmas is nothing compared to what others have lost and what will be lost.

Today also brought more craziness from our corrupt and evil president, this time a nefarious recording of a desperate man trying to persuade and intimidate election officials. This as nearly 350,000 people are dead and he has done nothing but make everything worse. It's infuriating, sickening, and just so wearying. 

The rhythms of this post--moving from personal/individual to a wider look at the country and the world and seeing so much needless pain--are the rhythms of pandemic life for me, I guess. We are, as Walt reminds us, a "knit of identity," and as Frances E.W. Harper tells us "all bound up together in great one bundle of humanity." It is useful, vital, and essential to be reminded of this, and so strange to see it again and again in a time when I feel so physically separated from others. 

I am telling myself now (as I write this) that it's worth thinking about the message of Christmas again, the individual child who saved a broken world. A huge gesture of love and sacrifice that we ought to emulate and revere. There is that light in the darkness--I think we can see it if we look hard enough.

Moody, rambling Sunday thoughts, I know...