Where is Christmas? IX

The cold here in Florida has brought memoires of days past in Detroit where it would be so bitter cold I thought I’d freeze to death. It reminded me of the days of preparing music for the Christmas seasons in cold churches, practicing the organ with fingers stiff with cold and wishing there was an electric heater near the pedalboard. I wondered if all the preparation was worth the effort. Then I wondered how I could not do it in any other way. Part of the celebration of Christmas is the preparation, the anticipation. Working with choirs and instrumentalists I always wished for one more rehearsal, one more go through of the music, one more chance for preparation.

My thoughts then shift to Mary and Joseph on the day of Jesus’ birth. The Posada in the Spanish community tradition reminds us of how the couple went to different places to try to prepare for the coming of Jesus. One place after another saying ‘no’, ‘not now’….no room. How relieved Mary and Joseph must have felt and how grateful they must have been to have a place that was dry and away from the direct weather to make final preparations for the Incarnation to occur in the world. How grateful and just in time perhaps.

So too in my memory of when all the music would come together ‘just in time’, all the choir members were able to be at that last rehearsal, the fingers knew where to go and the final preparations became a glorious opportunity to praise God in song.

Today it is cold here in Florida, those memories flood back to me about those preparations, and now I ask myself…..how do I live out the Posadas in my life, how am I allowing the Incarnation to come into my space, my inn, my home in such a way that it is a glorious opportunity for Jesus to come in……perhaps just in time.