This was a perfect Christmas. I can say this because I have (finally!) changed my concept of perfection. You see, it wasn’t an ideal Christmas, fulfilling the “oughts” and “shoulds” and”fantasies” that dance in my head. It was a very real and very good Christmas. And I accepted it as it was, in fact, I embraced it and that is perfection.
On Christmas Eve, we attended a candlelight service with our youngest son and his family. Their being with us that night was the greatest gift they could give us. That was perfect even though every one of us was a bit harried because of Christmas preparations.
It was a little warmer than usual for Boston this Christmas, and that was good. In the morning there were a few(someone said, maybe seventeen) snow flakes and that was all. Leading up to Christmas the TV Weather Forecasters kept acting as if we all wanted a “white Christmas.” Not me. Snow makes traveling hard and even dangerous…and, it needs to be shoveled and sometimes plowed. My perfect Christmas is snowless. I can enjoy a white Christmas in my dreams.
Christmas fell on Sunday this year and since our family is grown up now, we were not sitting around opening presents, we were in church. That was a perfect place to be on Christmas morning. As we celebrated the birth of the Christ Child, we even had our own new miracle baby in the congregation. His Mom had been on bed rest for months and we had been praying for a safe delivery. He is here and beautiful and Mom and Dad, though sleep deprived, are joyful.
Later on Christmas Day we had dinner with some family and friends and then dessert with more family. One friend was sick and could not come. Another family member was in a nursing home, missing her first Christmas with us. A dear friend and a cousin had died. Still, we were able to enjoy those who were there and were grateful for one another, those around the table and those with whom we felt connected in other ways. I was kind of numb and spent after dinner. I usually am and, of course, that is the way it is, and that is all right.
Some of the presents I gave were less than exactly right. I think those who got them knew there was love behind them and they are gracious. The vegetable I chose for dinner was broccoli rabe, new to me, and on the bitter side. But it was still fine because folks accepted this as one of my experiments. No one complained. Some of our family members celebrated in their own homes this year. We connected by phone and we will see them at another time. It is perfect that love travels across miles and is shared with others without being diminished.
Th activity the kids engaged in after dinner was noisy. I was responsible for that since I bought zhuzhu pets for the occasion. (This because they were on sale, 90% off.) But it was a good, albeit sometimes silly sound.
As the new year comes, our friends from Brazil will be returning home, our oldest son and family will be moving to Boston, an old friend from Kenya will be showing up. New tenants will be moving in. I will be returning to Interim work. And who knows what else will be happening. We were aware of all the preparations for these changes going on as we celebrated Christmas. Life in motion as the end of the year approaches.
These new changes will mean some losses. People we love leaving or us leaving them. Friends that we spent time with in the past year, seen much less frequently. We will have to find other ways to connect with old friends, even as we joyfully welcome family who are coming home, and anticipate new connections waiting to be formed.
As the new year approaches, I am committed to embracing a new kind of perfection, one I experienced this year as a Christmas present. If I let some ideal images slip, engage in much less judgmental behavior (even with myself), am less anxious about what others think of me, and trust love to shine through and accept it as the gift it is, life is perfect and good. Life may not be exactly as I would have planned it. But I have to admit that I don’t always (if ever) know best. Allowing for change and chance and chaos, the strengths and limitations of being human, the gift and finitude of time, and the creating breath and wise ordering of the Spirit in the midst of it all, I give thanks for all that is and all that will be. And I rely on the Christmas baby, now the risen Christ, to accompany us through life’s labyrinth.
This Christmas, as I once again marvel at God’s coming into the world in the vulnerable baby, Jesus, I realize that that is how God always comes. I see God coming in all of us, at first, each one a vulnerable baby. The Light that shone in Bethlehem still shines. That is good, that is perfect. And as Charles Wesley might have said, that is ultimately perfectible. God with us, Emanuel.