We have survived another holiday hiatus! I realize most folks would not put it this
way, but it is a good way to understand the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year’s Day
combination. I also realize the word,
hiatus, is not a word you regularly hear in a McDonald’s coffee
conversation. But it is a good
word. It means a gap or break. In the way it is being used here, it means a
break or interruption in time or routine.
Oddly enough, the root meaning goes back to the Latin word for
“yawn.” So we have just come through a
big yawn in routine time!
A hiatus is often a very good thing. It is not unusual for people to get tired or
even bored with their routines. “Same
job day after day,” is a common lament.
Even those of us who like our jobs are often eager for a break. And certainly those who no longer have jobs
because of age, infirmities, etc. welcome a break in their routine. Busy people need one kind of break; bored
folks need a different kind of break.
It is not unusual for the holiday hiatus to bring people
into our lives whom we do not regularly see.
Kids come home; parents go to kids’ houses. Cousins show up; uncles and aunts arrive with
their stories and tales. Good friends
get together to remember and to anticipate.
One of the ways I experience the holiday hiatus is the
disruption of my normal sense of time.
Because Christmas and New Year’s Day are always specific days, i.e. Dec.
25 and Jan. 1, they can fall on any of the seven days of the week. So for two weeks I cannot figure out which
are weekdays and which are weekend days.
At least in my life, Saturday and Sundays are different than the other
five days of the week. But during the
holiday hiatus, this is not true.
But now the hiatus is finished. Normal time returns. Mondays will feel like Mondays again. This awareness does not lead me to any
significant theological or philosophical insight. In and of itself time does not bring its own
meaning. I am convinced human beings
make meaning. We might inherit it from
our culture, from our parents, from our friends and peer group. Or we might make our own meaning. And for this I am grateful.
I like the fact that meaning is made. As a Christian, I can ponder some of the
stories of this past Christmas season and remember how that Christmas story is
a form of meaning making. All the
stories about baby Jesus, the manger, the shepherds, and so on were stories
that began the process of creating a way to understand the meaning of this
birth.
My choice is to decide whether any of that Christmas story
has meaning for me. And if it has any
meaning, does that meaning extend now into my ordinary time? Or do I simply set it aside until next
December? I will share how it is
meaningful to me now in normal time.
Primarily, the Christmas story is a story about God’s
involvement in human history. The same
is true for Hanukkah. It also is a story
about God’s involvement. I do not
believe God’s involvement was a one-time or even two-time deal. I believe Hanukkah and Christmas are “paradigm
stories.” A paradigm is an outstanding
example or model of the way things happen.
Hence, we celebrate them as holidays and, rightly, there is a holiday
hiatus to focus that celebration.
The good news is God continues to become involved in human
history---in yours and, hopefully, mine.
I want to be open to that involvement.
I want to do what I can to intend it and incarnate it just like I think
Jesus wanted to intend and incarnate.
My desire and goal is not to let any ordinary day be so
routinely lived that it has no meaning.
If that happens, I will be more than disappointed. I will have failed. So let this day be the first day of my
success…and yours, too.
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