Incarnation. Sick kids. Christmas Eve.
It is Christmas Eve and poor Junia is sick. She's been feverish, has thrown up a couple of times today, and has her standard cough. Poor kiddo.
We were all looking forward to going to evening mass and then having dinner with friends. Sadly that is not going to happen. The funny thing is, what is hardest about this change of plans is that somehow it feels like the religious-ness of this holiday makes me want to go to church. It is powerful to see the nativity acted out at church. Even though it is mostly kids being funny, and teens being awkward, and shepherds having no idea what their lines are, it is beautiful. Last year I recall watching the 15 year old "Mary" hold a 10 week old "Jesus" and thinking, "wow maybe Mary and Joseph were really that awkward with a baby." I was 27 when I had a baby and I didn't know what the hell I was doing the first time around...."Mary full of grace" might have been "Mary full of confusion and awkwardness."
Who knows.
Something about our plans being changed by Junia today might be part of the meaning. It is the power of parenthood and the power of the incarnation that Mary and Joseph's yes is a "Yes to the unknown." Even Christs yes to being part of our world in such a tangible way is a "Yes to the unknown." I don't think that God gets chest colds, and God doesn't vomit, but Jesus did. Christs' experience of being a human was fully human...sometimes he was an inconvienance, sometimes he forced his loved ones to change plans, sometimes rituals, holidays, and gatherings were not as planned.
That's not a unique experience i am having.
It is the human experience that we are all having.
So tomorrow might be a glorious Christmas celebration! It might be all the romance of Christmas. We might create magical memories. Or it might be a holiday with sick kiddos and cleaning up throw up and fighting with Sean about who is going to clean it up along the way...I don't know. But it will be human life...and that is the incarnation. That is Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
We were all looking forward to going to evening mass and then having dinner with friends. Sadly that is not going to happen. The funny thing is, what is hardest about this change of plans is that somehow it feels like the religious-ness of this holiday makes me want to go to church. It is powerful to see the nativity acted out at church. Even though it is mostly kids being funny, and teens being awkward, and shepherds having no idea what their lines are, it is beautiful. Last year I recall watching the 15 year old "Mary" hold a 10 week old "Jesus" and thinking, "wow maybe Mary and Joseph were really that awkward with a baby." I was 27 when I had a baby and I didn't know what the hell I was doing the first time around...."Mary full of grace" might have been "Mary full of confusion and awkwardness."
Who knows.
Something about our plans being changed by Junia today might be part of the meaning. It is the power of parenthood and the power of the incarnation that Mary and Joseph's yes is a "Yes to the unknown." Even Christs yes to being part of our world in such a tangible way is a "Yes to the unknown." I don't think that God gets chest colds, and God doesn't vomit, but Jesus did. Christs' experience of being a human was fully human...sometimes he was an inconvienance, sometimes he forced his loved ones to change plans, sometimes rituals, holidays, and gatherings were not as planned.
That's not a unique experience i am having.
It is the human experience that we are all having.
So tomorrow might be a glorious Christmas celebration! It might be all the romance of Christmas. We might create magical memories. Or it might be a holiday with sick kiddos and cleaning up throw up and fighting with Sean about who is going to clean it up along the way...I don't know. But it will be human life...and that is the incarnation. That is Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
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