Broken Angel?

We live in a world full of so much we cannot touch or measure.
Our culture demands both for truth. I don't believe that. Probably many of you don't either. To do so is limited at best and at worst, destructive. Angels are messengers. I am no angel, but I am paying attention.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Making a List and Checking It Twice…


 

   It’s the 21st of December, the solstice, the anniversary of my father’s death, and more to the point, four days until Christmas.  There are very few events or celestial movements that take precedence above the list of purchases to make, dry cleaning to drop off, packages to wrap, parties to attend, bills to pay, sermons to write, pastoral calls to make, items to return to their point of purchase, gifts to procure from a spectrum of sources, devious and straightforward, cards to write, address, stamp, and mail.  The only way to keep track of this chaos is ‘the list.’   

   My wife is a blessing in many ways.  Her ability to bring some sort of order to a chaotic universe is one of them.  In her infinite wisdom, she knows better than to attempt to push and shove all these discordant entities and vectors toward an order that she has determined.  Her experience as a single parent has taught her that this is a waste of energy.  Rather, she composes, magically, bringing it to being from the bits and pieces of sensed and known dynamics, capabilities and possibilities, arcs and planes, the answer to all our worry and lack of understanding.  It seems to be just a piece of discarded envelope with numbers and words, paper-clipped to coupons and receipts, but we all know that this is what all magic is made of, common elements, herbs and minerals gathered together in to proper way, bits and pieces seeming so common until they are joined with words and motions, each exactly right.  Words like, ‘Well, we’ll be over there, it makes sense to drop by their house.  We’ll only stay a minute.  Then we’ll go to the mall.  We can get Starbuck’s while we’re there.  That will hold us up until lunch.’  See what I mean?  You’d never know that magic was brewing.  Magic that holds the world together.  Magic that allows all the insanity of this crazy season to become Christmas.

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