confusion, chaos and Christmas

Everywhere I look, I see confusion and chaos in our house. The kitchen trash can is overflowing. Toys are underfoot and children are playing the "Roar" game in our shower to hear the echoes. Meals are a cacophony and symphony of sound. The refrigerator is full, stuffed with leftovers and supplies for meals yet to come. The house is also full of laughter and frustration and glee and fatigue and love.
In the middle of morning breakfast shifts and showers and crying babies, the phone rings. Michael’s voice,"Come to the garden in the mule. Barney has hurt a cat." I fly down the stairs in my robe and pajamas, put on my boots, drive down to the garden and find Hal, a black and white barn cat, terribly injured. I wrap him in towels and we drive up the hill. Alison checks him out and the decision is made to take him to the emergency animal hospital. As I drive, I am remembering the other trips made to this same animal hospital for beloved pets. Hal dies before we get to the vet and I stand weeping at the reception desk as his body is placed in a box and my towels bagged by sympathetic helpers.
What to do about Barney whose breed is known for killing small animals? How to intervene and circumvent Mother Nature? How to tell the grandchildren... do we have a funeral this afternoon... how to tell my mama about her cat being killed by my dog... my mind is flying in circles as I slowly drive home on the interstate. It has been a dark, cloudy morning after rain all night and my mood fits the weather. Suddenly I see it... a small, pale rainbow in the middle of an isolated blue patch just to the left of the highway. A rainbow... a promise... a reminder that God is present.
And suddenly I remember another Christmas, the first Christmas, Mary and Joseph on the interstate headed to a strange town not to meet family and friends but to obey a law requiring their presence for a census. Mary must have been frightened and sad. Her first baby, a baby with such an unusual beginning, would be born without any of her women friends or family with her. I was scared enough with doctors and nurses to help, not to mention the epidural. After a 24 hour labor process, I was worn and weary and ready for this grand event to be over. How must Mary and Joseph have felt, surrounded by strangers, in pain, in a barn not even an inn, no bed, just straw. I do hope they weren’t alone. I hope the innkeeper’s wife came and held her hand, talked her through the birth, cleaned the baby up and told Joseph how to help. Surely God sent them a rainbow person for the birth itself not just shepherds and kings coming after the pain of birth had eased.
I pulled over on the shoulder to sit with the rainbow for a minute, to let the colored light ease the ache in my soul for us all. And as I sat, tears flowing, like the Psalmists of old, I began to recite my pain and my blessing. I called the names of all those I have loved, four and two legged, who have died, blessed their names and grieved their absence. I called the names of those who still walk in the land of the living, blessed their names and presence in my life. I called on the name of the Lord. I called for peace and joy and hope. I called for the Mystery to be born again in me as I celebrate and survive yet another Christmas, another beginning again the walk towards new life and death and resurrection. Like the "begats" at the beginning of the Matthew gospel, I am a part of a long list of those who have walked with God. When it is my turn to die, my name will be remembered by those who have loved me. God will remember my name and I will be finally whole and on the other side of the glass through which we see darkly. Thanks be to God for life and death, for rainbows in the midst of dark clouds, for all of life in its complexity, for babies and dogs and cats and noisy celebrations of the present that keep us in touch with the One who started it all. Amen. Peggy Hester