A seasonal reflection

Not for the first time, yesterday I was grateful that I worship in a Christian church (Episcopal) that observes its own seasons. Most of our society is done with Christmas. Retailers report we spent and consumed appropriately (presumably in the interest of "the economy".) Dead evergreens are lying on street corners, waiting for the garbage company to chew them up. We've weathered the grand drinking bash that is New Years. Christmas is SO over.

And that's just fine with me. I have a very hard time getting into the boisterously cheerful and ostentatiously prosperous secular Christmas. And the religious celebrations mostly evokes in me anxiety about candles that might ignite the decorations and recoil from ornate, maudlin representations of story.

I do rather like the sheep.

Couldn't we all just quietly give thanks for the solstice -- the planet's enduring round that returns light to the Northern hemisphere -- and let it go?

But, since my worship community is still celebrating the Christmas season, I found myself yesterday singing a familiar hymn (102 in the 1982 if that means anything to you) and suddenly found myself able to feel the spirit of the season I'd just endured.

... with the poor, the scorned, the lowly, lived on earth, our Savior holy ...

... this child, our Lord and brother, brought us love for one another.

Ah yes, that's Christmas. Thank goodness it finally got through at the end of the season.