Aloha

A bee buzzes nearby reminding me it probably wasn’t a good idea to spritz orange blossom perfume on my neck this morning. Maybe I should move inside, be safe.

Not this beautiful morning.

Not on the Big Island of Hawaii where I write this twenty-second day of December, so close to Christmas, yet so far away.

The rest of the clan’s gone off to explore one of the five volcanoes on the island. For some reason, I preferred the coziness (Hygge in Danish) of our lanai more than cycling over  lava beds.  My idea of an adventure is looking at pictures of what we used to do and being astonished, or listening to the children and Grands tell tales of their latest treks.  Better to remember and imagine.

Which is something I do a lot of at Christmas, remembering and imagining.

This morning, the lyrics from a hymn nudged me from my slumber, “More Love, O Christ to Thee.” I took it as a God nudge of what I need to be about.

In memory, I hear Basil’s, “Silent Night, Holy Daytime.” In our world, where more than “Shepherds quake,” it’s good to remember why they trembled, “Suddenly God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them.” (Luke 2 in The Message).

That’d do it.

Soon came words, gift wrapped, as only God could, “Don’t be afraid.  You’ve got a Savior.”(Luke 2). Hope from the heavens to those who tremble all over this world: in prisons, beside or in hospital beds, behind rich mahogany desks, along halls of Congress, lined up for clean water or just water, among throngs jostling for meager food rations,  ragmen, women and children, sleeping under bridges, in cardboard boxes,  secluded in penthouses or hidden behind walls on vast estates, wondering when their secrets will escape.

How could God, knowing all this and more, say, “Fear not” to  all us tremblers?

Could it be God’s Good News outweighs the bad? Perhaps God trembled knowing the conditions into which His Son would be born and live. Still God risked and Love acts.

The shepherds, desperate for a Savior, took off running, to see if the possible’d entered their impossible world. And it was  as they’d hoped and heard.

Even in this beautiful setting, I  crave Christ, long for Bethlehem moments, for “more love, O Christ, to thee” less love for stuff and such, for self and all that converges to suck the Life out of life, to blast away the silence of our nights and the holiness of our days.

As I write, birds walkabout the lanai, fearless as I sit mere inches away, feathered reminders to “consider the birds, careless in the care of God”(Mathew 6 The Message)   They remind me of God’s loving care for us tremblers. leaving me  remembering and imagining.

Come with me, all your sheepherders, even if we can’t run, lets inch on to Bethlehem to see with our faith eyes, to believe the unbelievable, once again.

We have a Savior.

Aloha.

Love and peace to you and great gratitude for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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