Christmas 2012

The first Christmas song of the season caught me unawares. “What is he singing?” I asked the nurse. It was early morning in the memory unit at one of my nursing homes and Mr. Z was belting out something vaguely familiar. “Listen – you’ll hear him sing ‘Sleep in heavenly peace’”, she replied. There it was: “Sleeeep in heavenly peace” – a little slurred, notes gathered together from various different keys, but sure enough, “Silent Night”.

I watched Mr. Z repeat part of the first verse and the chorus.  He sat in the middle of the hallway, staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on some point – past the nurse with her medication cart, through the buzz of florescent lights, past the emergency exit. He sat there, transfixed, leaning slightly forward in his wheelchair, a forgotten cup of coffee tilted in his hand. “Sleeeep in heavenly peace….” I watched until he suddenly broke off and looked around, startled, like he had just returned from somewhere. Like he had been travelling beyond the cinderblock walls and wheelchairs into fresh air and old times, maybe to a family gathered around a long gone Christmas tree or into a pew at Christmas Eve service. 

Christmas always brings us back. It brings me back to December mornings in southwest Virginia, thermometers dipping below zero, my old hound dog waiting for me to roam the woods and hills. I remember Christmas Eve, walking through a quiet world hushed under a crust of snow, still and waiting to hear that old story again, about that baby, born like us, born to us, born in a manger.

Christmas is like that, the present always cradles the past. When Mr. Z or you or I sing “Silent Night”, we don’t just sing it today, we sing it to days long gone. When we decorate this year’s tree, we decorate the trees of our childhood. In keeping the traditions, we reach out to touch the times and the people who came before us.  It’s like that, then, a chain of traditions kept, each one remembering and reaching towards those who came before – parents, grandparents, immigrants, wanderers. And in some way, Christmas brings us all back together - all looking towards that star, that stable, a silent night – reaching out to touch the hand that reached out for us. When we were lost, when we searched in darkness – a hand reached out and still reaches out – through the stories and wreaths and trees and candles and family gatherings. A hand reaches out into our childhood, our prime, our decline, into this violent world of shattered movie theaters and classrooms, into the dark heart of grief, into the nursing home where Mr. Z’s cup of coffee dribbles onto the linoleum - a hand reaches out bringing comfort, love, peace, hope.

Keep the traditions this Christmastime. Look and touch and sing. Be with your family if you can, or give them a call if you can’t. Sing the songs and light a candle. Reach out for those times of wonder and innocence and grace, because when you reach out far enough, you’ll touch His hand, eventually. And may you sleep tonight in heavenly peace.