We’re there, I think. Christmas is over, and so is the New Year’s celebration. Time to get back to “normal.” After a week, I’ve almost forgotten that Christmas came. The real work of living what I believe is sometimes so easy: saying to the clerk at the store, “I’m not in a hurry, just take your time,” or any of the tiny and large kindnesses I expect of myself in the world. But it is sometimes hard: wondering who’s sick, without financial help, cold and without shelter, and trying to keep up with the meetings, the homebound members, and the day to day demands on my time.
It’s actually the song of the angels that sustains me when I am stressed out and wondering what’s next. Those Glorias ring in my memory to keep me mindful that this is not work we do alone. We are just the hands and hearts that help to make it happen. It is God who is at work, and nothing we do to accomplish God’s work ever goes to waste. The miracle of participating in that work is not that it does good things for the people we give it out to, but that it shapes us, gives us a taste of the joy that Jesus talks about in giving and sharing, makes us know in a concrete way that we can trust God at work in us and around us in our fellow community members.
May you have the opportunity to rejoice in the work of Christmas which begins now.
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