I have a lynching to write about, then an 1888 visit to the poor farm and a variety of other matters to consider this morning --- but all of that seems unnecessarily negative at what some have considered to be the most wonderful time of the year --- including Iowa's own late Andy Williams, who included a version of a 1963 song so entitled on his first Christmas album. Especially on the eve of the big day itself.
So I've been looking at this image that's popped up often on my Twitter feed during the last couple of days --- looking for inspiration.
The page is from a mid-15th century French book of hours --- or prayer book --- written and painted onto vellum, from the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. It left obscurity and entered Twitterdom some years ago when the Fitzwilliam used the image on one of its Christmas cards.
I like to think that a mischievous monk was behind it --- Mary propped up in bed reading, Joseph tending the child, ox contemplating the mother, ass nibbling on the stepfather's halo. That may or may not be the case.
But it is a good image for those of us who are not orthodox believers but still find joy in the pageantry that surrounds this Christian celebration of incarnation.
So be merry now on Christmas eve, if you can --- but throw off guilt if you can't. If you are joyful, remember those who grieve, the poor and the hungry, those in danger, the stranger seeking refuge, those who are ill, those who are sad. If you are a believer, remember that those who do not share your faith merely follow other paths and nothing more.
I'll be thinking of fierce Mary --- her incendiary "Magnificat" was woven through lectionary readings for the fourth and final Sunday in Advent; strong, patient, nurturing and gentle Joseph; and the child that in Christian myth and magic represents the light present in every aspect of creation. And going back to church again on Christmas Eve, too, as I always do, in search of a little magic.
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