Saturday, December 25, 2010

Not quite ready

 
 
Not quite…there
(by R.P.Edwards)

Not quite ready
Not quite…there
So keep the stockings hung…with care
Keep the tree up
Shining bright
Keep on singing
Silent Night
Whatever reason
Kinda slow
Just warming now
To mistletoe
So, please
One week more
Of Christmas fare
I’m not quite ready
Not quite…there

Years ago it got me a ticket.  It was evening and I was on an unfamiliar street--long and straight and dotted merrily with stoplight after stoplight.  I was on the job; driving the company van, somewhere, to do…something.  Anyway, here’s this long road and I dutifully focused on a coming light.  Problem was, it was the light “after” the nearest.  As a result I blew right through an intersection.  By God’s grace there was no traffic, but there was…a cop; of the State variety.

Well, today, on the way home from “the job” I did the same thing.  No, not the intersection “ticket” thing, but the “look down the road” thing.  And, as we had been blessed with a Christmas-eve snow (a few unassertive inches) and, as traffic was nearly nonexistent, I happened to fix my gaze just a little bit higher, and a little bit…further.  And I saw them.  Just above the common path--the always traveled from here to there roadway--there were stars; stars and angels and stars and angels, one after the other--each softened and framed with heavens glitter--for blocks and blocks and blocks.  You see, in this Midwestern town we still have some holiday decorations--the street light variety--that have not yet been sacrificed to the PCers who swarm on the edges.  Yes, an unrepentant  recognition of the season, and the season’s…reason.

It’s Christmas Day, and I’m not quite ready for it to end.  Not quite ready to give up on the feeling and the finding.  Not quite ready to shift into the non-essential…essentials.  Yes, for whatever reason--be it work or worry--I’ve been a bit slow to the warming that is the finer part of this time.  And, even though we’ve been bombarded with fashions of the message for nearly two months, I’ve been slow to turn; slow to listen. 

And so, with presents presented, and good wishes to all, I shall endeavor to hold on…just a bit longer.  Yes, just as this working-man’s town holds on--in spite of the railings of the unfeeling or forgetful--to the symbols of substance, I, too, shall seek to extend the season beyond its normal confines.  One more week should do it.  One more week with the tree still lit.  One more week with the parables still playing and the carols…calling.  And then; perhaps then I can freely let the year give way to the new.  But, if I am wise, if I am…very wise, I shall not fully…let go.  I shall, as a converted Ebenezer spoke to the final phantom, I shall… “honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

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