O Holy Night...
It smelled like shit. The walls were practically painted with the stuff. Those that had obviously deposited the décor lazily looked over as we frantically searched for a clean place to sit down. None could be found.
In the midst of the shit and animals and straw and more shit, we cleared away a bare spot thinking, for some reason, the dirt had to be cleaner than the animal laden carpet. “Am I a bad husband? Should we have traveled so far away from home? What am I supposed to do now?” all anxious questions that raced through my mind. Her screams pierced through the fog of my thoughts. With one hand she reached up and griped my forearm while the other dug into the earth beside her swollen belly. Sweat beaded up on her forehead slowly grouping together and dripping down her anguish stricken face. With her eyes closed she gently moaned and sobbed and every few minutes her back would arch and her sobs would escalate into screams of pain. “How could this happen? How did we get here? Are the people in this town really such tight asses that they won’t even let a man and his pregnant wife into their home?” again my thoughts interrupted by her cries of agony. As she held her breath and the bulging veins in her neck rhythmically pronounced the racing beats of her heart, this time, I could begin to see his head crown forth from her womb. Blood continued to spill out and coat the dirt with a slippery crimson hue and I could think to do nothing but reach my hands out while mumbling soothing words in a desperate attempt her ears would find some resemblance of comfort in the midst of what seemed like torture. “How long would this last? How much could she take? Why would no one help us?” I thought, somewhat glad her eyes were closed so that she wouldn’t see the fear that seemed to engulf me. For what seemed like hours I could just see the top of his head as the cadence of cries and moments of rest repeated through the night and then in a matter of seconds his head slowly emerged followed by his tiny arms and torso, legs and feet. I pulled his fragile body into my arms and the cries from his mouth met his mother’s as they drifted into the night air and I wondered if this was how it was supposed to happen.
It was there in the shit, and blood, and sweat, and pain, and fear, that God entered into our world and became flesh, like one of us. It was there that the savior, the messiah, the promised one was born. I wonder what Joseph and Mary would think of 450 billion dollars spent in malls each holiday season and the amount of debt raked up in one shopping spree, and the suicidal thoughts of those who have no families or the pressure put on single moms to buy their kids gifts they can’t afford. I wonder where the idea that happiness is something you can purchase got mixed into the ways we celebrate the birth of God into our midst. I wonder if there are different ways to celebrate. Different ways that don’t involve pressure and debt, yet include the poor and those that often get pushed to the margin of our society and most pretend don’t even exist. Different ways that breathe hope into the lives of people around us like God breathed hope into our world that one Holy Night.
Here’s a very cool video from Adventconspiracy.org
Whether or not you agree with anything said above, please take a few minutes and watch this video:
[AC] Advent Conspiracy from Jon Collins on Vimeo.
