Christmas morning everybody was iced in. Church cancelled. I spent some cozy time by the fire with the first eighteen verses of John's Gospel. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God," brought to my imagination some of those awesome images of space from the Hubble telescope. That's probably as close as my imagination can get to eternity. "And the Word became flesh and made his home among us." The Greek means "pitched his tent among us," but we don't live in tents; "made his home among us" has a warm feeling for me. This picture of sunlight on snow covering field and trees is an earthly contrast to the space images.
"No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son who is close to his Father's heart, who has made him known." Now Jesus draws us close to his heart so we can show God to our world.
I wanted more so I spent another two hours listening to a CD: Messiaen's Twenty Looks at the Infant Jesus. The first one is a "look" at God and then on through angels and Mary and the child and the Cross. The style of music helps me think of the eternal born into time. One "look" is about the duration of Mary's pregnancy which he calls "the first and greatest of all communions," and helps me reflect on the presence of Jesus within me, within all humanity.
The ice turned out to be a wonderful Christmas gift for me.
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