Conversation Point

In This Moment

Traveling to Bethlehem

Business and busyness abound today. With Christmas only five days away, UPS faces its twenty million deliveries, most malls have stretched open their hours, some from eight in the morning to eleven at night, and New York City scrambles through a mass transit strike. Temperatures in the mid-thirties have to be brushed aside as people walk, ride bikes, roller blade, or try to drive to work, finish their holiday shopping, and wrap up errands before the weekend. Focusing on that goal seems to have allowed these resilient people to summon up a resolve not unlike those united by a natural disaster. But as the chill eases in tonight, the stars are crisp and shimmery, and their is a stillness blanketing the earth.

In another time and place, Mary and Joseph are on their way to Bethlehem, perhaps setting up their camp for the night. The shepherds are penning their sheep under a moonlit sky, weary after a long day tending their flocks. Three men, traveling together on camels, are intent on monitoring the star they are following, in hopes of finding their way to a new king. Not facing a mass transit strike of their own, they must only deal with the reportedly cranky nature of camels, and the normally rough nature of travel in an ancient desert country. Elsewhere, shopkeepers, not hindered by extended hours, are closing their doors to go home to their families. The Temple in Jerusalem continues on as central focus of the Jewish faith, its leadership balancing itself between honoring God and appeasing the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, underneath all the normal, daily living, there is also a stillness, possibly not discernible to a country and a people long-wearied by political and religious oppression. But it is real nonetheless.

Sometimes, life sends us down unexpected turns at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes, life appears to be plodding on, every day passing as if merely a duplicate of all the others that have gone before. Sometimes we can't squeeze enough into a day of living. Sometimes we dread waking up because the day stretches before us as a long, lonely road. Our world and the ancient world are vastly different, but remarkably similar in the human experience in so many ways, especially in how we who inhabit this planet have come to understand and accept the rhythm of life. Somewhere, somehow, in all of this, we keep going. sometimes against our own better judgment, sometimes in wonder at the way things come together and work out.

These last days before Christmas, we seem to be tending to the frenzy of a season, frantically putting into place just the right packages, bows, platters and platitudes A transit strike was not a part of anybody's plan this week in New York City. But, the season still is, and continues. The mystery of the Christ's coming to be still whispers among us. I'm sure that Mary and Joseph were eager to be done with this census business so they could return home to Nazareth to raise their child in peace. Well, that journey took an inconvenient turn of events too. But, their journey continued, their child was born, and they got through it. Even more so , the mystery of the Christ's coming to be whispered among them all: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, the priests, the Pharisees, and the Roman Empire.

There is no denying the extraordinary change that comes into our ordinary lives each Christmas. It doesn't happen overnight, but slips in, unawares, all around us, until we stop, look into the night sky, and see the star that is leading us to the stillness in our hearts that recognizes and welcomes God With Us once again.

Until next time, God's blessings.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 8:10 PM