Merry Christmas, 2023
Much of my life has been a practice in learning to be alone...
Much of my life has been a practice in learning to be alone. As a child I was always given the qualifier, only. I was the only child in my family, sibling to dogs and cats.
Today, on Christmas morning, I linger in my reading chair with my dog nestled in a fleece jacket breathing deep nearby. Today, on Christmas morning, I am alone. On many mornings over many years a scene very similar to this one has played out. But today, the loneliness is charged by the tradition of a holiday.
All children born first in their family exist with the designation of “only” for some period of time, and some of us wear it for the rest of our lives. On Christmas morning the tingling sensation of familiar loneliness has me imagining my alignment with Jesus, also born an “only” and, some might say, lived his last day as one too.
Jesus lived his days in a much more communal culture, so perhaps the days spent alone were fewer than my own.
But even as I imagine Jesus sitting in the corner of his office in Phoenix on Christmas morning, a candle burning the scent of longed for pine trees, his most faithful companion resting at his feet, I’m struck by the reality that my loneliness, while acute, is insulated.
At this very moment in time, people in the homeland of Jesus have been bombed. Again. A Christmas day bombing this time and the tradition of the holiday is charged with humanity's evil insistence on war, death-dealing to bring faux peace.
Where is the Prince of Peace, the only One who is supposed to save us, to save them, to save us all together? Where is he so that we might not be alone?
Merry Christmas from one who sits alone, but this time not grieving my own wrestling with the effects of loneliness, but as one mourning with those who mourn this Christmas day for Jesus has been buried in the rubble. Alone. Again.
Who can celebrate when things are still, again, always, not as they should be? My gift today is only my lonely tears.