A poem to start this post:
(with a nod to T.S. Elliot)
Let us go together, you and I, and listen to a tale of one season.
We'll snatch a snippet of time with no before or after.
Then we'll find a Christmas story needing no rhyme or reason.
His jacket pulled tightly around, he feels a rush of cold air - grateful for his jacket's warmth and his long, bushy hair.
He walks swifty over crumpled brown leaves - for a moment he notices how they crunch under his feet.
He enjoys the smell. It reminds him of the season.
A sense of late autumn aroused by leafy aroma.
In his mind he assumes the leaves are dead, not knowing they are vibrantly alive - Their time is always now.
Their now is nurturing the soil.
Offering their seasonal oblation
To all of this -
He is oblivious
He has worries and plans, there's too much to do. Not enough time.
His time swirls - future, past, present - anticipating, remembering, worrying.
His world churns, twirls and turns. There is no
still point.
He hears a carol and pauses. It sounds glorious yet so far away - ungraspable.
The season and the carols - inscrutable.
They carry that peace beyond understanding.
Listen, listen the carols herald -
Feel the still point of the turning world.
In this poem, the Christmas season is for everyone of all beliefs and otherwise. It is about the season when days are at their shortest and there's a chill in the air. Nature exudes a stillness at this time of year that seems to reach out to us to slow down and feel. It is also about the birth of Jesus. The carols that celebrate both the nativity and the season burst with a call to stillness. Perhaps it is in this way we can appreciate the Christian message of peace, a peace beyond understanding.
