Darlin’ (Christmas Is Coming)
So it’s been a long yearEvery new day brings one more tear
Till there’s nothing left to cry
My, my how time flies
Like little children hiding their eyes
We’ll make it disappear
Let’s start a brand new year
Darlin’ Christmas is coming
Salvation army bells are ringing
Darlin’ Christmas is coming
Do you believe in angels singing
Darlin’ the snow is falling
Falling like forgiveness from the sky
If I could have anything
What would I want this new year to bring
Well, I’d want you here with me
Tear these thorns from my heart
Help the healing to start
Let’s set this old world free
Let’s start with you and me
-- OtR, Detweiler
Music is an oil that kneads my soul, pressing the truth in, letting it out. I marvel at the capture of its thought, and the rapture of discovering it. We looked and whispered at each other…listening to these words one late December rainy night. Lots of tears and lots of fears…in retrospect of 2007. Now Christmas. An end of something and a beginning of another. How can we welcome it? How can we not? The music is so painfully beautiful, so joyous. It reminds of how much I want…how much I want you. You being you, and the yous, and the You. Am I, too, playing such mournfully divine music with you, yous, and You? I often can’t hear mine, but I can hear yours.
Recently, God used Over the Rhine to cleanse me again…as they have done before. So deep the scrubbing that I ached the next day. A pain familiarly unfamiliar. A good pain. A longful one. No pretense, just yearning. For things I know about and things I don’t. But full of admiration for those who can capture it…and rapture it in me. This is the heart of Christmas, I suspect. Something in the night, darkness, where stars can shine. Your stars to me, mine to you, yous, and You. Hard to imagine, but I distrust you if I don’t believe it. Such a kindness brings healing, if not restoration…but to what, remains unclear. But to what, it matters less and less…with you, yous, and You nearby. To ornament my life with things my money can’t buy this Christmas. A tree of life…and light. Yes, even a Christmas tree.
You Give and you give and You give. And You take away, and you give. And you are given.
Not a riddle. You are mine, those given to me. Yous are you all, who continue to respond with such deep compassion to His hand on us…by offering simple kindness after simple kindness, after simple kindness. And You use it to heal me…and mine. And the circle of dance continues round and round, much better than the wheels on a school bus. A holy dance, what we barely know the tune to…but one that we recognize more and more.
Thank you for being our healing balm this Christmas…for things we do and do not know. Thank you for ringing as bells to us.
What would I want this new year to bring
Well, I’d want you here with me...
