The cold winter air makes things crystal clear

Mychal Wilmes

Date Modified: 12/17/2009 9:52 AM

E-mail article | Print version

The stars hang like Christmas ornaments in the cold December sky.

The air reaches deep into the lungs and awakens the soul. A police car races on the blacktop, its lights flashing and the engine's sound carrying through harvested fields.

Lucky and Karma leave their hay-covered bed. Paws crunch across the snow before they stop to sniff the trophies they have left on the lawn -- deer legs and bones. Snow is good cover for the their bone yard and hides our environmental sins, which include burned remains of plastic containers and unharvested zucchini from the dead garden.

Snow hangs from the pine boughs. Frozen apples are partially buried in the snow. Cobs, all that's left from the squirrels' meals, rest on the thin snow layer. The red oak stubbornly holds on to its brown leaves as if it fears winter nakedness.

All these things lead to thoughts that could be considered strange, unsettling and comforting.

It's in the stars

The ancient ones in their nomadic existence lived underneath these stars and told stories of creation, gods and demons. Oral histories became written words and then doctrine.

Their sun revolved around a flat Earth, which was the center of the universe.

Scholars skilled in the language of 25-cent words debunked their truths just as Charles Darwin did when he scandalized the world with his "Origin of Species." I'm not familiar enough with God to know how it was done but have adequate faith to believe that creationism and Darwin can co-exist. Whether we are a monkey's distant nephew or the suffering result of Adam and Eve's decision to fumble away the Garden of Eden doesn't matter because whatever the case, a creator was behind it.

Certainty of thought grows more tenuous. When we were children we believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny and all-knowing parents. Child-like faith is quickly left behind for rebellion, an uncomfortable place where faith and knowledge must be tested to be proved true.

With winter's approach, we are comfortable with what has earned our trust. What we are is grounded in something much bigger than ourselves. The stars, the moon, the snow and all creation speaks to it. Twenty-five cent philosophy perhaps but freely given.

Warmth of the holidays

The house's warmth is welcome.

Kathy asks about getting a tree. We could always put up the yet-unused artificial one. It's her garage-sale find tucked away in the big closet. We are going to keep things real, even if it means cutting the top from a backyard pine planted 20 years ago or purchasing a flawed and, hopefully, discounted tree.

The ornaments are in a cardboard box along with tinsel and paper streamers made by Sarah and Rachel in their fourth-grade classrooms. A tiny handprint molded in clay reminds us they were once as tiny as our dreams were big. Sarah says to call before we decorate so she can help.

Kathy finds the Christmas book from which we read a chapter a week to the children. The children had memorized the words long before we stopped calling them to the kitchen table to flip the pages. A Christmas cookie stain or two shows that the book is well used.

Kathy says the stores offer amazing discounts on gifts. She runs down the list of who needs what. IPods, cookware, clothing. She asks what I want.

"I could use another shirt and tie," I say without conviction. Kathy says that there must be something else.

There sure is.

I could use more time to look at the stars, to see the moon reflect off the shed's roof and more awareness that all our lives are part of a rich tapestry that is bigger than ourselves. If our children understand that, they will be fine on even the coldest winter night.