Thought for the Day

There’s a time after Christmas when we all start thinking about “business as usual”. It may not be yet. Frankly, you might even resent being reminded about it.

So what was it brought you down with a bump this season?

Family relationships? Ensuring transport for family members in the midst of all of this snow and ice? A stray thought or two about what you’d actually spent over the last month and what the credit card bill’s going to look like? The attempted bombing aboard an aircraft coming in to land in Detroit or maybe some other news item which reminded you that the world hasn’t changed all that much just because it’s Christmas?

All this reality gets in the way of a holiday, doesn’t it? A bit of sacred space for some of us, a few days of rest and relaxation for others.

Nobody in the Christmas story appears to be on holiday, though, do they? Funny that. Mary and Joseph are working to a tax deadline. King Herod is keeping order in his kingdom and preserving his place in the pecking order. Shepherds watching their flocks on Judean hillsides – they were on-call as usual. And let’s not forget the Wise Men: As strange and enigmatic as their job might have been, even they appear to have been on duty.

It wasn’t a holiday for any of any of them. We’re the ones who’ve made it a holiday. The Son of God was born into a busy world and the key for us is to maintain the link between that Story – with its message of hope and God’s good will towards humanity - with the person we usually are and not the person we are when we’re on holiday.

We’re people who slave away and make decisions affecting others. We’re charged with the nurture of children. We buy and sell. We make products, tighten bolts and run offices. We try to get the best deal we can. It’s that world which all this Christmas stuff has something to do with and not simply the family sitting around the front room playing charades.

And so maybe it’s not over when we find ourselves back to work today or in a day or two. Maybe it’s just beginning.


The audio is available for a limited time HERE. TFTD begins at 1:23.15 - a little more than halfway along the audio bar