On The Second Day of Christmas

.... we slept late after a small Christmas Dinner with a few family members yesterday.

We woke up with sore backs after shoveling so much wet, heavy, slushy snow yesterday. However, it was better than the alternative, which would have been another foot of snow.

I started a prayer shawl for my dad.

We did a little shopping with our gift cards.

I did a little bit of story-telling (The Mitten) for my homily tonight.

Tonight, it's icy. On the side streets, if you stop, you have to burn a bit of rubber to get started again.

It's the 2nd day of Christmas. For most of the world, Christmas is over. 24 days of Christmas music in the elevators, shopping, parties, fake and real trees, decorating, baking.

But Christmas began in earnest on the 24th, with the lighted candles and the story of the baby in the manger. Now, for the next 12 days, we contemplate the incarnation.

We contemplate the incarnation in the midst of icy roads, or empty cupboards, or shopping malls, or Alzheimers. Or we contemplate the incarnation while troops land in Afghanistan, families count their pennies, turn out their lights to ward off bill collectors. We contemplate the incarnation while we knit prayer shawls, make supper for homeless families, teach English. Or we contemplate the incarnation while we worry about immigrants (or welcome them), move away from our bad neighborhoods, fear our neighbors.

We contemplate the incarnation in the midst of real life, while God is busy hunkering down in our real life.

Somehow, God is redeeming the world, and somehow God is using us, our flesh, to redeem the world, but when I look at us, I doubt it.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas God is hunkering down in the real world, the real, cold world: the world where cancer and cruelty, joy and goodness exist.

When I think of this, I believe.