I'll Be Home For Christmas, If Only In My Dreams
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sad news - because of the work situation and the money situation, I won't be able to travel home to Washington for Christmas. This will be my first Christmas away from home and family.
I will be working at Target on Christmas Eve until 6:30pm or so, then I might catch up with a church I've been visiting (Solomon's Porch) as they go Christmas caroling around Hennepin County Medical Center, the big hospital in downtown Minneapolis. Last year when the group went caroling, some crying nurses ran up and told them to come quickly to one particular room. Inside this room, a man had been comatose and unresponsive for two weeks. When the church group had walked by singing carols, he had awaken from his coma, walked from his bed, and was standing at the door of his room, bawling.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2
Christmas day I'll be chilling with the family that lives across the alley from me, Sam Olson and his family. They have a tradition on Christmas day of rounding up as many "homeless" friends (some literally without a house, others simply without a home, like me) to go out to a state park for a bonfire and winter picnic.
I am/will be thinking a lot about my home in Rimrock, WA - the remaining Washam 7 will be gathered around a 12 foot tree in the living room for the first Christmas up at Camp Ghormley. The house will be snowed in with feet and feet of snow all around, surrounded by the Wenatchee National Forest, in the Cascade Mountains....
But enough for feeling blue - even if I am the lost ornament from the tree (see picture above for resemblance??). This will be a Christmas like no other, I already know that. My hope is that in this season of the unfamiliar, I will be able to see and hear a new rendition of the story of the incarnation. With a fresh telling ringing in my ears, I hope to take steps to love my small part of the world that God loves so much.
Posted by Benjamin Washam 4:31 PM
Labels: Christmas
