I am inundated with feelings, swamped with the overflow of tears and laughter, drowning in suffering and anger and laughter and joy. It is Christmas and suddenly everything seems to be more intense, more of itself now than in real time. The joy is more joyful, the sadness a heavier weight to bear, the anger and frustration seem unending with no solution or resolution, the expectations of hope, love, joy and peace are fragile and subject to breaking in shipping. Yesterday was a day full of all this and more.
Mama is leaving in one week to return to Georgia for two months (maybe). She wants to see her doctors, live in her house a little while, see friends, go to church, get her taxes done, be home for a little while. She is full of anticipation and fear. So am I. I fear loneliness for her and for me. I worry about her aloneness far away from us. I celebrate her network of friends and church and the feeling of being home. At the same time she will feel daddy’s absence more keenly in the home they built and the farm they loved. What is a daughter to do but let go and pray?
Friends’ feelings are in turmoil, raging PMS responses in menopausal maidens, children over the moon with the holiday hilarity, undone gift selection, parents in nursing homes, family members and friends who will not live to see another Christmas, hurtful convoluted communication, confusion and consternation on every hand. What can a friend do but pray?
Children and grandchildren coming with joy and laughter, Christmas Present. Hopes of riding Junie B. Jones and the tractor loom as large in their holiday season as Santa Claus. Three year old Mason walks around holding his nativity ornament singing songs of the season. Matthew is holding on, hoping his mother will not have to call Santa Claus about his behavior, playing his part in the Christmas pageant, a beaming shepherd. Adam and Michelle, Megan and Mike, Alison and David, Matthew, Mason, Meade and Aidan will gather here at the farm for Christmas. We will have a candlelight service with family and neighbors in the tobacco barn chapel Christmas Eve and remember why we are gathered. What can a mother and grandmother do but pray?
Ghosts of Christmas Past arrive as well. "Wouldn’t daddy be proud of his great-grandchildren?" "Mommy Anne would have loved to be in the center of all this celebration." Remember...the fall Grady and Gayle died and we drove through the night singing Muppet Christmas songs and weeping... the Christmas Daddy O and Mommy Anne wheeled out a rack full of sweat suits for everyone in bright colors...the first Christmas on Sabbath Rest Farm...our first Christmas when you gave me something black and brown and medium sized...remember? What can a woman do but pray?
My prayers are not for peace and love and hope and joy. I have those in abundance. Nor are my prayers for the easing of pain or the resolution of anger and confusion. I have those also. I will not be praying for the way to be made plain nor the lion to lie down with the lamb. I will be praying prayers of gratitude for all of Christmas, the lions of loneliness and fear, the lambs of love present and love lost, the horses of hope and despair, praying for the fullness of Christmas to come to my heart. I will pray that my heart might be open, like the birth barn, so that Jesus might come once again to live in my soul manger. I will pray that Christmas will come and we will all, for a little while or for the rest of our lives, remember and give thanks for all that is, all that has been and all that is yet to come.
"And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing." Edmund Sears
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