We are in Joshua Tree National Park, in a cabin. I’m in front of a fireplace; outside, millions of stars fill a sky darker than I’ve seen in years.
A woodblock creche from India; the woodblocks are similar to ones used for printing patterns on saris.
Love the detail from this wooden creche– look at Joseph lifting the new baby high! Such a human moment captured and made immediate in simple wood.
And this one, another intimate human moment. The new family, young in the world.
I was trying to remember about starlight– isn’t it true that the starlight we see is reaching us many, many years after it’s already shone? That the stars we see shining, many of them, are already dead?
I’ve been thinking a lot about saints recently, and about Joseph– an ordinary man of the world thrust into extraordinary circumstances. His faith– and faith alone, no angel came to reassure him!– and solid actions nurtured something that has continued to impact us these thousands of years later.
As this year comes to a close, I want to hold fast to the idea that the relationships I form and keep, and the decisions and actions I take, are in place in a pattern or rhythm I can’t always see or know. How frightening! How out of control! And yet, isn’t Christmas–after the waiting of Advent–about embracing the radical unexpected things, with a willingness to joyfully follow a world turned on its head?
