(Full disclosure: I am back-dating this post. It’s already 2024 as I write this but I was preoccupied with many things at the end of the year that I did not get to write this. I’m channeling that week in my memory as I write this; it is not realtime.)
I’m finishing the year feeling a touch of love in the areas where I’ve been wanting it most. But wanting it doesn’t mean I can just experience it. I want some of my relationships restored, but it’s been a painful restoration process. I found I was able to be normal-ish for the long Christmas weekend. Family was over. There was a hint of a glimpse of normalcy. But just a sliver. And maybe that’s enough.
Children and Christmas shows, whether put on by a big church or put on by your own children have a way of bypassing the nonsense of adult conflict. Perhaps that is where I most clearly saw love. We know how to love children. We know how to ignore that which doesn’t matter and attend to what does when we focus on children.
At Christmas I saw how children drew people in so that… for a few minutes… or however long the show was… we were able to put unimportant things aside.
A slow turning of things but a turning nonetheless.