Monday, December 20, 2010

moving boxes and bubble wrap

Today I have some simple choices; gratitude is one of them. I am grateful for health. I am grateful that my wife and children are well and fed. I am grateful for a place to live and grateful I could drive my wife to work. I am grateful for employment, both for myself and my wife.

Wonder is another choice. It is both curiosity and awe. I wonder about the wonder of God-come-to-earth--how God put on a face, color, hair, hands and legs--why the new king was born the way he was. He would come to my apartment today, the place with the closet door that keeps coming off, the place with the loud furnace, the over-sensitive smoke detector and the drafty hallway. Our storage area has enough heat; he could have been born there. I could put on my boots and visit him out back there, stepping carefully over the ice on the pavement. Maybe Mary and Joseph would have taken some of our saved moving boxes and made them into a crib, lining it with some of our used bubble wrap. Good thing we saved it. We wouldn’t want God broken now, would we? There is the wonder that this child born in our storage space would one day call me friend, even though, when the going got tough, I would desert him. There is the wonder that he would forgive me and commission me, in spite of my indifference and fear—the wonder that he could use a person like me. And there is the wonder that he would love me, just love me, regardless of my usefulness. We would never suspect as such but this is the child that would set us free because of such free, no-strings-attached love. His advent is enough to make you cry with the happy-sadness of joy. It is the ultimate tragi-comedy.

Today I choose to recollect the story that holds all stories.

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