December days are whizzing by like a run-away sled.
Did you ever find yourself going lots faster than you felt comfortable …right on the edge of being out of control? My first skiing experience was like that. I courageously pushed-off and concentrating on keeping my balance overlooked the importance of keeping my speed under control. At 200 pounds plus (and I do mean plus), it’s important to keep zig-zagging back and forth to keep your speed under control. Three quarters of the way down the slope it occurred to me that no one had ever taught me how to stop gracefully.
At the bottom of the slope were dozens of skiers making their way back and forth in front of a healthy sized creek.
I did an awkward sort of lay out slide to keep from flattening two little girls in expensive ski outfits. They looked at me with a mixture of surprise and disdain and shuffled on. I got up trying to regain the composure I never really had while wiggling around so twenty or thirty pounds or so of snow would come out of my pants. (That’s why they wear those one piece things!).
I spent the rest of the day trying frantically to keep under control. When I did, I found the slopes to be a delight, when I didn’t, I attracted a lot of attention from those around me with more poise.
December these days and modern Christmas is like a ski slope. It can be great fun but you really need to learn how to keep your speed under control.
It seems so incongruous to celebrate a humble quiet backward birth with the kind of bluster and ballyhoo that surround modern Christmas. Please don’t mistake me for a distant relative of Ebeneezer Scrooge, but I’ve found that just a little zig-zagging along the slope of modern yuletide can add to the delight of the season. It passes by so quickly and it’s gone and all the wonder and beauty and music fade back into the routine. Learn to slow it all down this year. You will be so glad you did.
This evening I serenaded the children in their beds with the guitar and the harmonica as they chirped out Christmas requests. We prayed and I came downstairs and put a –quiet recording of calm, peaceful carols on the stereo and let my spirit drink in the quietness and solitude and peacefulness and purity and wonder of Christmas and the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What a wonder! What rejoicing! How incredible! How tragic that we miss so much in our mad dash to the discount rack.
