Water and Fire

(Yes, yes; I've been away from this blog. All's well! My focus and concentration have been caught up very much in the ongoing job-hunt amid this terribly intimidating economic morass… and time spent visiting with my mother in her rehabilitative-care center as she continues her wonderful recovery from last Summer's strokes. I'll drop updates in here when I can, folks – my creative (even spiritual) energies have had to endure a good amount of drain and demand... whew! Watch this space!) 

Today the Church celebrates Jesus' baptism, a feast-day which also concludes the long, deep, and lovely Christmas season, and transitions us gently into following the events of His life, through to Easter (and picking up again after Pentecost). 

Yet Christmas doesn't end today, of course; nor did it end with Epiphany on January 6. At the expense of unloading a cliché: Christmas is an event we can, and really must, carry with us through the entirety of the year. Think: the expectation of Jesus' imminent arrival among us (and think about this: as a totally helpless infant – you want humility, there's your prime example); the awe and stunning significance of this; and His simple, gentle (yet utterly profound) life and words – these don't belong to December/January alone; His life and our rescue/redemption are too great to confine to a brief season, a few weeks, or (worst) a single day or two. 

And more, the positive cultural context here in the West: families drawing together and celebrating in heart and spirit; reflection on the year ending and the new one beginning; gifts of graciousness; and much, much more, of course. 

These, too, belong with us through the entire year – we must never lose the sense, the awareness, even just the warmth of memory, of these things that enrich our lives and souls and homes as one year moves into the next, and the days lengthen beautifully once more. 

Still, taking down the tree and decorations this afternoon and evening has of course been a bit saddening, melancholic. Yet – I remind myself as well as you – these are the outer trappings only; the joy and peace and spirit are never confined to boxes and stowed away on basement shelves. 

Ah...