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Take my
yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls
(Matthew 11:29)
We took the Christmas
tree down today. The tree is artificial; the emotions were not.
The process follows
a decades-old pattern. I remove the ornaments and give them to Dixie, who packs
them away until next year when we will bring them out of storage and tell
stories about where this one or that came from, or who gave it to us, and how
it is connected to the life of our family.
Dixie is
better at remembering these stories. She was paying closer attention to what
most matters through the years, so she reminds me as we put away the tatted
angels and glistening stars, olive wood mangers and the artisan acorn our daughter,
Rachel, reclaimed from my mother’s house after she absconded with it.
‘I suppose this
is silly,’ Dixie says, as she slips ornaments into protective boxes and bags
they don’t necessarily require.
‘No, it’s not,’
I reply without thinking. ‘Its gentle and respectful and reverent,’ which is
what I see as I watch her eyes and hands guide each item into its bag or tiny box
until it is safely ensconced, her pulling a draw string or sealing the top of a
Glad bag, ensuring it is safely home.
Gentle, respectful
and reverent, the words came without prior consideration. They crossed my lips
before I knew what I was saying, which doesn’t make them less true, only more
so. The words are, in fact, a prayer of my sad and troubled heart. In this
case, they are an answered prayer, for which I am doubly thankful.
My mind and
heart have been absorbed in the news where gentleness, respect and reverence were
killed once again, this time by a bullet piercing the head of a Minneapolis
mother and wounding the hearts of all who still believe every human being is a precious
and irreplaceable image of the God who is Love.
Unfortunately,
the federal government of our nation is now led by men and women who lack this reverence
for life, regardless of what pieties they may spout. Their hearts are wed to
power without principle, and their words demonize, their actions brutalize, any
who get in their way.
A woman is shot,
and they immediately blame her, undisturbed by the agent who called her a ‘fucking
bitch’ as he holstered his gun and just … walked away … after killing her, his words
and actions an apt metaphor for the dark heart of the Trump administration—if not
also for the loss of transcendent values at the heart of post-modern secularity.
It is hard, no,
impossible, for me to navigate the vertiginous distance between the nihilistic barbarity
of our times and the preciousness of life I felt as Dixie and I carefully stored
Christmas away until the happy day, we, God willing, do it all again.
What happened
in our living room seems insignificant amid the fury of recent events. But I
know it is one more thing that keeps me human. It softens my heart, eases my
sadness and protects me from the rage that swells within at the malignant
malevolence of ICE, which, unchecked, would make me a mirror image of that
which I hate.
Holding the
image of those hands slipping ornaments safely away, my heart is healed by the
gentleness, respect and reverence that is the heart of my Lord in the heart of
my beloved.
David L. Miller
