A Sacred Journey

Christmas Eve 2002

And this is my favorite moment. All the not yets almost fulfilled. It has a certain magic to it. When the day comes it is over but right now all is still almost, full of potential, and wonder-filled. Maybe peace shall reign. Maybe love shall be first in our hearts. Maybe we will finally be delivered from fear. Maybe, maybe. I almost don’t want the day to arrive and have to let go of all these possibilities. Arrival is not what makes tonight what it is. It is this moment. The journey. The Christmas story is really about a journey.

Mary. Young and naïve and impressionable Mary. What was she doing traveling so far at such a bad time? It is clear to me that this was not a journey that anyone would want to make. I have never been pregnant but I can imagine that taking a long journey on a donkey is not anything you want to do when you are really pregnant. And the reason for the trip seems especially cruel. A census? You have to travel for that? According to the story, I guess, you could not easily be exempt from the census. But that is what you did when Rome said so. It kind of gives you some insight into why Mary would agree to birth such a son who would rule over the house of David as king and over throw the Romans. She and others would not have to put up with this kind of nonsense if her son became king. I am sure she was quite adamant about this point when she finally saddled into Bethlehem!

Yes, it was their civic duty but I think that there is something else going on here. Mary as we know was a young woman with barely a prayer of respectability. There would never be any reason for anyone to believe her story. She was practically still a child herself. And she was a female. These are not the cornerstones of respect and believability in ancient Israel. In fact anything she would have said would have been discounted just on the grounds of who and what she was.

Imagine the conversation between Joseph and Mary when she told him what had happened. It is amazing that she would trust him with this information. He could, for her obvious infidelity, have her stoned by law. But he does something far different. He believes her.

What could possibly get him to believe this little girl? Why would he and she have risked their whole lives for such a story? Why would she trust him? I can’t think of too much except that perhaps he loved her and she loved him. The way marriages went in those days love is no guarantee. And though it never says it in the story it could only be love that could get these people to act as they did.

And if they didn’t love each other before this journey they must have learned to love each other during this journey. Otherwise how could they stay together? I think they did it for love and that made all the difference. When we move on love and then depend on faith we shall arrive at a place of wonder and blessing.

This is the journey we all need to take. Do it for love. It is almost trite. But it is powerful. The trouble is that too many times this journey is a journey that looks like one of those horrible burdens of this living like traveling at the end of your pregnancy to comply with state rules.

Love is demanding that way. It invites us into paths we would rather not travel. Reconcile with that old son of a gun? No, I would rather not take that journey. Too much trouble too much pain. Reach out and help someone I don’t even know? I might get hurt. Risk your feelings with someone you care deeply about? They might reject me. Give your life living for love? I might lose everything. The journey is fraught with every reason to stay away. But it is love, it is really our only chance.

Not so long ago I made this journey. It may not have been as burdensome as the trek that Joseph and Mary made to Bethlehem but in my mind I dreaded it. I don’t travel well anyway but then throw in a couple of children and I am pretty much miserable. Then add the fact that we were traveling from White Plains to Greenville, South Carolina via Detroit and the entire traveling time was about seven hours counting the driving and you have a trip that could not be fun.

We were going to South Carolina to see my parents for Thanksgiving. That was the other part of my pre-journey resistance to the whole event. I love my folks but my mom is failing. She has Alzheimer’s and I knew that at best she would interact just a little. So we were making this long trip to a place where there really was little for the kids and the whole family to do, to interact with a person who would too quickly forget that we were even there. I admit I was not looking forward to it.

If you had asked me the day before and given me the choice to go or not go, I would have been tempted to not go. But some things you do no matter the burden. Love dictates it so. My Dad needed to see us. He is the caretaker and has been stretched because of my mom’s illness and I knew this would help him even though I had been down to see them just a month before. I knew it was very important for the kids to see grandma because there will not be too many more times to do so.

I had told the kids that grandma didn’t remember things too well. I told them that she probably wouldn’t know their names. I told them not to worry about it, just to love her and she would love them back. Conner who is very sensitive to such things thought about it for a while and then asked, “Does she know your name Dad?” Out of the mouths of babes. The crux of my reluctance and my six year old had nailed it. “Maybe,” I said. It is not easy losing your mom. And I thought that if she didn’t know me she would be lost to me. She had still known me in October but I knew what was coming.

When I saw her I hugged her and kissed her but mom wasn’t really there. She didn’t know me. At least, she could not call me by name. It is so sad. But at the same time she knew somehow that she belonged to this group. And we tried to make her a part. Sometimes that made her mad, sometimes she was somewhere else all together, and other times she tried to be the person she used to and almost did it.

But even though she really was not sure what was going on we seemed to be a wonderful salve for her. She perked up as the weekend went on. She smiled more and was far more responsive the longer we hung around and hugged her and kissed her and loved her. And after we left she asked Dad, the very next night, why they weren’t going to the house where those noisy funny people were. I like to think that she felt so very loved. It makes me wish we could be there always.

The journey back was easier. We arrived home late on my birthday. I was older and perhaps a wee bit wiser and in a place, I must admit, of wonder and blessing. No, she didn’t know me or Ann or the kids. She didn’t know my sister or brother or nephew, she really hardly knows my Dad at all. She can’t communicate, she can’t participate, she can’t knowingly really be my mom any more. But she feels it. It is love and it doesn’t go away. Thank God.