Waving, Not Drowning on Christmas Eve

 

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled to scorn—
Yet here did the Savior make His home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

The Risk of Birth by  Madeleine L"Engle                

Yesterday some walkers by the shore of the Bay of Quinte in Belleville called 911 because of two people who'd gone through the ice and were frantically waving their arms -- or so they thought. First responders showed up and discovered that there were two bald eagles out on the ice, fanning their wings, not humans in distress. It's wonderful that these magnificent creatures which were all but wiped out in this region are making a comeback. And the emergency call was an honest mistake on the part of concerned citizens. 

This made me think of a chapter in Sandra Marinella's book The Story You Need To Tell: Writing to Heal From Trauma, Illness or Loss. Chapter 1 is Waving Not Drowning and the quote beneath the title is from Helen Keller  "All the world is full of suffering. It's also full of overcoming." The chapter heading is itself a reference to a poem called Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith. 

This is a year which has both flown by and seems like a decade, all at the same time. I'll speak for myself in saying that most of the time I've generally felt that I've been waving as I purposefully swam, only to have moments when I was trying to keep my head above water. 

It would be churlish of me to complain. I'm retired, we're healthy, we have a spacious home and yard, we've been active in a region with low case numbers for...you know. Still, it has been a challenge, and I wouldn't mind getting out and toweling off for a while. We had a grandchild born earlier this year but we can't see him nor the rest of his family this Christmas, and an aged aunt who was lots of fun died yesterday. 

I have immense admiration for those who've carried on in their workplaces, and those who've had no work at all. Over and over I ponder those vulnerable people in long-term care facilities and those who care for them. i can't imagine the dismay of small business owners who've been told to shut down for four more weeks, the lump of coal in their Christmas stockings. And then there are all the people who are grieving the deaths of loved ones, and are restricted in actually doing so.

In the next few days many will be experiencing a different sort of grief, that of being separated from those they were sure they'd see at Christmas. Doing the right thing by staying away seems like the wrong thing, but such is 2020 when everything is upside down. 

This Christmas Eve I will remember the story of the unsettling events around the birth of Jesus, both the bad and the good. Hey, angels are good, but we can concede that they're not the norm.  Just the same love was born -- Christ was born.

I may blog tomorrow, but if not, have a wonderful Christmas. May you soar in 2021, by the grace of God. I'm waving enthusiastically toward you, dear readers, not drowning!