Covid Christmas

While I don't normally observe the minutiae of the liturgical seasons, looking back over these blog posts it seems I frequently post around Christmas, and I think I know why. I'm sitting here coughing and sneezing and having trouble eating and sleeping -- yes, after nearly 3 years of constant vigilance, I've caught covid.  And in the midst of this misery I am remembering to be so very grateful for my vaccinations and boosters and the scientists who created them.  I am feeling grateful for the students, friends, and colleagues who have offered assistance (we're well-stocked and doing fine, thanks!) and warm wishes for speedy recovery.  And now feeling incredibly grateful for the stranger with a backhoe who just cleared the snow that was packed at the end of our driveway.

And I am remembering that Christmas is the celebration of God's absolute and unwavering willingness - desire, even! - to be one with us, to be one of us, to enter into the human predicament and see it through as each and every one of us will do.  Ensconced on the sofa (downstairs for the first time in several days!) listening to my all-time favorite Christmas album, Amy Grant's A Christmas Album, with tears streaming down my cheeks as she reminds me that the old language for the birth of the Messiah still points to timeless redeeming Truth.

Hail the Heaven-born Prince of Peace! 

Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings, 

Risen with healing in His wings;
Mild He lays His glory by, 

Born that we no more may die
Born to raise us from the earth, 

Born to give us second birth
Hark! the herald angels sing, 

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Emmanuel, God With Us, you move me to tears to know that you redeem us just by being among us, by being with us, indeed just by being.

I don't know if we'll be able to get a tree, or if the last presents will get picked up from the post office in time. I hope the soup supply doesn't run out before we're out of quarantine.  But even if all that happens we are loved, we are going to be ok.