A Christmas Poem

Several years ago as the editor of a local newspaper I wrote a weekly column. Column-writing can be fun--you can write about things only you care about and you feel lucky if anyone else cares enough to read--but it can also be taxing. Some weeks the ideas won't come and you just spit something onto the page.

As the Christmas season approached I was at a loss for a subject matter and on the fly I crafted a poem.

A close friend of mine who read my column faithfully told me that she loved it, and when I visited her home several months later, I noticed she had clipped it and hung it on her refrigerator. By then the newsprint was yellowed with the grease of a kitchen well-used.

The next summer my friend died of cancer, and the following Christmas I ran the poem again. But this time my publication of the poem was purposeful. I introduced the poem with a tribute to my friend.

That was three years ago. This season I thought you all would enjoy reading this verse that was so special to my friend. Each time I read it I imagine her in heaven worshiping the Savior she served so faithfully on earth.

TM

I love the holidays. I hate the holidays

I love the holidays. I hate the holidays.
I love the aroma of cinnamon candles burning. I hate that Christmas decorations go up before Thanksgiving.
I love the chocolate, rich taste of home-baked fudge. I hate the extra 10 pounds.
I love decorating Christmas cookies with the kids. I hate cleaning up the mess.
I love hanging ornaments on the tree. I hate packing them away again after the New Year.
I love the tinkle of bells outside each store as the Salvation Army faithfully collects for the needy. I hate the ring of the cash register, signaling a depletion of my checking account.
I love the hustle and bustle of Christmas shoppers. I hate the hustle and bustle of Christmas shoppers.
I love the joyful sound of Christmas Carols on the radio and in stores. I hate the annoying commercials selling fake holiday cheer.
I love the vibrations in my chest as the organ plays “Joy to the World” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
I love to hear the children, dressed as Mary and Joseph, tell the Christmas story.
I love that God sent His Son to earth for us. I hate that His own rejected him and that many reject Him today.
I hate that He was nailed to a cross.
I hate that He died in agony.
I hate that He suffered for me.
I love that He did because of His great love for me.
Merry Christmas, readers, and please stop for a moment as the holiday season begins to remember why we are celebrating.

Breathe

Writing is for me a personal exercise that varies according to the other ups and downs in my life. At times, my writing is like the heartbeat of my life--five full journals, most with six- to ten-page entries at times, testify to the importance of writing to my personality and wellbeing. At other times. . . it's hard to say. Either writing is still my heartbeat, just my heart is almost not beating, or maybe it's that writing fades into distant memory, like a forgotten motion of the hand that used to be habitual, daily, and necessary in another phase of life.

These days writing often seems far away, as though more a part of my past than present. My mind is surprised that I am asking it to write for this exercise, and it feels unsure of itself, cautious, self-conscious. In fact, this is probably not the tone I would ideally use for writing a post, but one must assume some tone to begin with, right? Write? Haha. :-)

I think that the state of my writing both reflects and feeds the other things going on in my life at any given time. Often I find that if I am not writing, I am also not working through my thoughts or dealing with the struggles of life well. The state of not-writing allows me to ignore things that I don't want to deal with, and it causes me to also neglect joys of life that I should be savoring. This is because writing is like exhaling for me--I can't take in all the events and thoughts of life without some way to also release them and move on. Writing is the way my heart exhales, releasing to paper all the sorrows I wish to forget and all the joys I want to remember.

Elizabeth