It seems I have found my way back to church. I go at the end of the day, in the early evening, a time when day is done, and I have the space in my head to think deeper.
Last Sunday, it was evening, and I was there, sitting in the third to last pew in the back, watching, praying, being still. I could see through the stained glass that it was nighttime.
For no reason, except the mention of ‘church’, I felt as though I were in that Beatle's song about Father McKinsey; I somehow expected I might see Eleanor Rigby. I suppose the quietness and stillness made me feel ‘isolated’. I had my silly chicken socks on and my heart in the right place …it was lovely.
Somehow, within the Readings, my spiritual thoughts led me to Christmas.
Christmas was secret then, when I was little. There were hidden toys in closets and dubious sounds on the roof. It was all mysterious; it was all possible then.
It was secret on December afternoons when I walked to Miss Sue’s house in the woods. There was no Christmas tree there and no Amazon boxes, only a little saucer of Christmas candy or perhaps a little gift with wrapping paper that had once wrapped another. On the way, there were cedar trees up against the barren blue winter sky. Tens of them carelessly planted by small animals and the wind. One would become my Christmas tree. My dad would cut it down, trim the trunk to fit into the tiniest of tree stands and we would toss imitation icicles on its feeble branches and string fat-colored lights around and around, it would be Christmas then.
And somehow, The Christ Child would be born, Santa would come, and our little tree from the woods would become magical and even more beautiful.
It was all so elusive and secretive, this season of Christmas. It was all so beautifully pure…
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