I should be asleep since its 3:24 am and I'm the lone housekeeper today. We are down to two main housekeepers since management finally snapped a twig about the people who call in all the time. My twig snapped last week when I worked with a high temp head cold and i have been filling in for another department... you know just to keep it interesting. While it would be nice to blame it on the worry factor that today's shift presents, or the bit o'cheer i had in my hot chocolate upon returning to my 40 degree house, the fact of the matter is I am awake to answer a call.
It would seem in my overwhelming sense of desperation to do the work (home and job) of four people during the passed month I neglected to do the work I am called to. And as I write that line I realize it shouldn't be work. But circumstances being what they are it is work since it is so hard to find the cheer in myself to spread around. I put a tree up last night and today opened my e-mail that I have neglected for a week or better and went to Verta's. The common thread tying those 3 things together can best be summed in a paraphrase from the Dicken's carol : "Humanity is my business."
Humanity needs its traditions and in these dark days when people struggle to hold the desire to live, striving to get to the day when they can drink up sunshine, celebrating th light is my business. As people take risks by engaging in what they hope to be genuine relationships on any status level, as they risk transparency, as they share vulnerability in asking for connection to someone, receiving them and responding with love is my business. Serving light, in this case being light, is my business.
I say this again because it is being hammered into my head that I am a frivolous waste of matter, energy and resources. I am, as counted by my surviving family, what Scrooge called surplus population. And as I struggle to remember my purpose I fight a plunge into permanent darkness. For with such a decree pronounced it is rather difficult to assert, given my financial means, that I am not the sum of my register. After all, I was made by a creator. I was made for a reason and it isn't to live on a hamster wheel for the state a federal coffers.
As Verta opened her heart and home to instruct and guide people in seeing, feeling and being in light so that we can help another out of darkness, being in class is my business. So I answer a call; the call to reflect the light shown to me.
Hannukah begins this weekend. It's start coincides woth Solstice- the point at which darkness is dispelled naturally with our position in the cosmos. It's science, you say. Astronomy, you say. Big flippin' deal you say. It's Christmas time you say. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. But it is all about coming out of darkness. Darkness is required for rest inasmuch as rest requires less light than action. But to live in darkness id to ive in deprivation. No matter what your religious belief, the Creator never intended his creation to be deprived. Total darkness destroyes life physically and metaphysically. Total darkness is entropic. Entropy is decay. Decay celebrates nothing. it is simply non existance.
So here's the thing. Celebration makes a clean shiny place in the heart for the Holy Spirit's light to dance as a candle flame. Hannukah, Solistice, Christmas- whichever; in the time of the year our mids need it the most the impetus to spread joy, to light the flame in abother heart as one bright candle can light a dark one without diminishing itself is found in these holidays. I chose to embrace all of then because personally i think the light more important than the lable.
But I was going to allow one stubborn candle that refuses to shiny tell me that a holiday in my economic situation and my ranking on his loser-meter was frivolous and unbefitting a person who should be begging forgiveness for all my screw ups with every breath I take, every move i make because he is watching me. I already possess the ornamentation. Why not avail myself of previous years' prsoperity? As I already have the means I wouldn't be spending money frivolously. But then the issue isn't about the money is it?
It was about the fivolity. Frivolity comes with joy. Or it at least sends the invitations. Frivolity is both the beginning and culmination of Joy which (just to make a nice holiday package) is Many Lights Dancing. Frivolity and joy are not things that outr stubborn candle approves of in people it deems unworthy. It is insulted by the celebrations of the poor because they have not done enough in his eyes to attain it. It is insulted that I do not accept the standard he bears and beg for daily forgivness from him. It is insulted that I can find joy despite my failed marriage, my divorce, my personal finances and for chosing to allow grace to cover over other unworthy persons' sins. It is insult that i don't grovel for failing to desire to break a sweat in my work, foir the time I have taken to encourage other candles to keep shining, making art, writing words and making food to share with others- even itself.
I already said I was sorry. I already asked for forgivness. I asked many times but accepted the Mercy of the Light and Spirit only once. Once was enough. The light isln't insulted. It is happy to not have to repeatedly light my guttered candle, to concentrate on reaching others who have never been touvhed with the flame of its passion. As for the art, words and food: the Light asks me to share that first to help keep candles with a dim fire alight and second, to encourage others like my previous slef to accept the Mercy and Light. That is my business. So a frivolous holiday tree with a gold and blue menorak ornament in the German tradition is the most fitting celebration I can have. So i bought the Menorak this year. 8.00 won't kill me faster than deprivation will.
No comments:
Post a Comment