My wife is always upset with me at gift-giving seasons, because I never know what I want. This makes it very difficult to shop for me. I know I am supposed to want things; I am an American after all. And yet I really am fairly satisfied with everything I have. In fact, to go beyond that, I am sick of all of the stuff around here, and the last thing I want is to add to the piles of junk in my house! When I was a kid, it was easy. The Sears Wishbook would come out and I would carefully pore through its pages, circling every single toy that I was even remotely interested in. These days? I see a catalog and cringe. Even when it is full of stuff I like! I know. My poor wife.
As I pondered what items I could add to my Christmas list this year, I came across another list I had been working on: music for all of the Sundays in Advent. Since I run a church music program I am hip-deep in the season of waiting, and I need to provide music for the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. Each of these Sundays has a traditional theme, and it occurred to me that, as the Grinch eventually discovered, nothing I wanted was going to come from a store.
The first thing that I really, really need this year, is HOPE. After months of hospital visits, grim diagnoses, and life with an over-medicated destruct-o-bot, I have to tell you that it is very tempting to give in to despair sometimes. When I am told by doctors to specifically give up my hope and to accept a different kind of future for myself and for my family, it sometimes seems easier to just give in and be overwhelmed by hopelessness. Isn’t that just realism? But all I want is a nugget, a kernel of hope even, to get me through to the other side of this storm. We are heading to Boston in a few weeks for a third opinion. Am I hopeful? I don’t know. But I’d sure like to be.
And if I were to receive this gift, I would also wish for PEACE. A single day without gun violence in this country would be nice. A break in the wars that send refugees our way, battered and scared. And perhaps this wish is selfish of me, because honestly I just need the peace myself. I need to turn on the news and not hear that the police have killed or been killed. I need to hear that the world is calm and secure. I need the peace in my own life. I need the chaos to stop. I need the medication to work. I need the side effects to subside. I need the clutter to disappear. I just need a break. Where can I buy a break?
With the opening of these first two gifts I would eagerly await the next package that I know would contain JOY. Please, if you can send me anything for Christmas this year, send me joy. Send me a happy moment of laughter, free from lingering worry. Bring me glad tidings and good news. I have had joy in my life, and in fact there are still moments of it sprinkled in with everything else, but it is a modified joy. It is a masked joy. It is a rote joy. I want to feel the rushing tide of bliss wash over my body as I realize that hope and peace have returned, and they brought a friend with them.
And of course what I really want the most, just like all the rest of us, is LOVE. I don’t need anything wrapped up, other than for the fact that it is a gesture of love. I want to be surrounded by my children and my family and I want to hold them close to me. I want them in my lap, not punching me in the face, but wrapping their arms around me. I want to spend time letting people know how much I love them, and I want to feel loved in return. Facebook is always trying to fulfill this need, but it never really can. There is a like button, but there is no love button.
In the end, I just want what Christmas promises all of us. I want to feel comforted and secure. I want to see a stranger in the street and have trust in that person. I want to be generous and kind. I want to be accepting of others, even when I don’t agree with them. I want to be supportive. I want to love. And then I want the rest of the world to look at me and do the same. I want to spend my life in December. I want Advent. But you can’t put that under the tree. My poor wife.