Faith Works 12-29-18

Faith Works 12-29-18

Jeff Gill

 

Too much Christmas? Or maybe enough.

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So, how much Christmas did you have? Too much, not enough, just right?

 

Goldilocks may not be a happy camper this time of year. Just right is a state of balance that few can achieve. The Three Bears may include in one house out in the woods the full spectrum of plenty, scarcity, and satisfaction, but as many have wondered, the odds are good that Goldilocks would get eaten by bears before she could complete her testing of chairs and beds and porridge. Anyhow.

 

I've listened to plenty of people say that Hallmark Channel movies are too much. Well, so is CNN. Ads at Christmastime for cologne are too much, but so are the calorie counts. And in the end, your excess may be my standard practice; my over the top could seem too little too late to you.

 

But it keeps seeming as if excess has become part and parcel of the Christmas season, from Dickens' "Spirit of Christmas Present" and his cornucopia of plenty, to the last few ad circulars in this paper (or the pop-up ads online at our webpage).

 

On the other hand, falling short at Christmas time is the tragedy of all tragedies; to be left all alone, to miss your connections, to not get the gift you fervently hoped for, those are the plot points for holiday films that speak of disaster. Only a last minute miracle, usually involving the right thing showing up out of nowhere, can save the story, or the hero.

 

Is there any miracle that could possibly occur, though, to allow us to have enough Christmas? For enough to be . . . enough?

 

Christmas Day is 24 hours long, like all of them; we may wake up early, even before dawn, say 6:00 am, and struggle to stay awake to 10:00 pm or so, making the Christmas we experience about 16 hours worth. It winds down slowly, and there's always a wistfulness to realizing that Christmas Day is ending, and won't be back again for another 364 days.

 

But isn't that true of Dec. 29^th? Why is there no bittersweet sense as we realize that it, too, is coming to a close as the streetlights flash on and the sky darkens? Dec. 29 will then be just as gone, for just as long, until the year makes another 364 day round.

 

Sure, other days don't get you presents. But some do! And any could. This is all why it's a commonplace saying to wish for Christmas joys and the spirit associated with the day to last all the year round. "If only every day were Christmas!"

 

Every day already is, I think. Not just by keeping your tree up (I leave mine to Jan. 6, another story there) or leaving the lights stapled to your eaves right into Fourth of July, but in the precious gift that is any day in this world. It is irreplaceable and unique and unrepeatable.

 

What we do with Christmas in all our over-the-top festive excess is a way of putting a pin in our mental maps, tagging the day memorably so we might have some of that specialness carry over to the rest of the 364. If one day that is, after all, exactly like all the others can be made that special, then maybe it means they all have the same potential.

 

And in the same way, it would be good if we could learn from our occasional lapses into excess, or those moments when we find events falling short of expectations, and not hang onto having gotten too little or too much Christmas, but let those ends of a celebrational spectrum remind us that there is a happy medium, a place in the middle of "enough." Enough is possible, and could be a goal any time.

 

Part of the mystery and, yes, magic of Christ is how his life is a message to me, from humble birth to sorrowful death, out of his incredible arrival and unexpected return, about both the value of every person, and the meaning to be found in each day. And his way of love and life tells me something about the possibility of finding "enough." That the person I meet, the resources I have, the moment I am in, could be enough, and not just a stepping stone to the next encounter, to more stuff, to a later event when things will really be enough, then.

 

Christmas, and season after it, is a good time for me to reflect on when and what is enough.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what you think is enough at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.