The Gifts of the Magi Visit

 The Monday before Christmas, I opened my emails and found an e-card from a student I only taught for a week.  She told me I helped her understand the assignment and thanked me for substituting when her teacher was ill.  

In that moment, I felt overpaid to have received such thanks.   

In class that afternoon, a student revealed they didn't think they'd receive gifts for Christmas in the midst of the chatter in a Zoom lesson.  Within hours, after an exchange of emails, they received food and a little something to make the time away even from this virtual experience of school, more pleasant, more celebratory.   

I waited for the third king of Christmas.  We'd had wisdom and with it gratitude, and we'd had need answered.  That afternoon, we needed to get to a therapy appointment, and found ourselves going through a live nativity display on the way home.  My daughter delighted in the beauty and the joy and the imaginative creation of the early part of Christ's life and her happiness became mine.  

It's easy to get jaded and tired and overwhelmed, especially in this year that could be defined almost exclusively in negative and unhappy terms.  Yet this year has brought with it the secret joy of time, time with our family that would otherwise be in commute, time together at meals that would normally be on the road or rushed, and time in the evening, when we might be going to a thousand extra curricular activities.  Instead, we are here.  

God has given us in this time, the gift we would not give ourselves, time with each other.   God has given us in this time, a gift we've ignored, the opportunity to rest, to eat, to be with those we love, to have ordinary time beyond what would ordinarily be possible. 

This Christmas, practice the wisdom of the three kings that visited me in the Advent season, be thankful and make a point of thanking others.  Be alert to the needs of others as they are voiced, even when they are voiced by what is not said.  Take delight in beauty, because that's the purpose of beauty.   And, recognize that God always offers us gifts in every age, in every time, in all circumstances.  They are often the gifts we lack the will to provide for ourselves or others. They contain in them, peace not of this world, and joy only possible in the company of others.   

Merry Christmas!