A quiet descended somewhere between the last hours of Christmas Eve and 12 am Christmas morn. My husband with two of our children was away at midnight Mass.
Our middle had been home with me preparing the early Christmas meal. We always eat our Christmas meal in the wee hours of the morn after the return from Christmas Mass.
With the dressing baking in the stove and the meat and vegetables simmering I sat down to take a breather.
And then I heard the silence.
It was clear, crisp, and pristine. It in rested the peace and tranquility bestowed from having my family at home for one more Holiday Season.
A family is truly a blessing. That we have been able to come together in good health and relationship is a boon.
Knowledge of that boon pierced my heart as I sat in the quiet of the night and contemplated what it must have been like for Mary having just given birth to her son, Jesus and with Joseph looking on.
I thought of the movie, The Nativity Story, wherein the character Joseph, after marrying Mary with child, a child for whom Joseph was not the father, promised to protect and care for her and the child.
Of course, the angel Gabriel had already told Mary not to worry, that God would take care of her, unwed and pregnant as she was. God would, as Gabriel promised, smooth out all the hills and valleys through which she would have to trod on her way to the time of giving birth.
Yet I am sure it was good to have Joseph, then married to her, say the words, assure in his own voice that he would remain faithful despite having married her in what some might have seen as following through on duty.
So much of our lives as writers mirrors that of Mary and Joseph’s union, with the God ushering stories and change into our lives that operate like the infant Jesus having entered Mary and Joseph’s.
The Mary part of us is open and receptive. And yet it is Joseph within us who must come forth and do the leg work of writing the rough draft, and then commit to a new round of writing and re-writing that involves revision and editing.
And then there is our story, our words that we craft, shape and reshape, and that must transform our hearts in each step of the process and along the way if they are to touch anyone beyond our ears and listening.
I pray on the eve of 2010 for all writers the gift of getting to know the Mary and Joseph who live with you and through them claiming the gift of story that is your Jesus.