The Space Between: or Have a Slice of Peace on Earth

I cherish the days between Christmas and New Year’s: the pressure’s off. The holiday shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, hostessing, and singing are over. Don’t get me wrong, I love the singing, especially the brazen showing off on the high descant parts, but it’s a lot of knowing-I-have-to-be-somewhere-later that kind of pressurizes my day.

The days after Christmas, however, bring a unique peace and calm. There is a special kind of stillness in the house, when Angelic Daughter, who is herself exhausted (delighted, but exhausted) by the anticipation, the treats, the thrice-yearly mashed potatoes and gravy, and the visitors-bearing-gifts, is safely sleeping the afternoon away upstairs, free from the anxious dreams that plague her at night.

It’s so quiet that I can hear the old analog kitchen clock ticking. The second hand broke off somehow a few years ago, and is lodged over on the side of the clock face, but the clock still ticks away, like a steady, healthy heartbeat. It’s not imposing a deadline, or timing something in the oven. It doesn’t stop and bing out chime that demands that I do something, go somewhere, or turn something on or off. It isn’t counting down to something. It’s a gentle constant in the background, without urgency. It just exists, like eternity. Tick, tick, tick. World without end, amen.

There is something sacred in this kind of stillness.

For 25 years, the Christmas Eve service Angelic Daughter and I attend, most of which I have spent in the choir singing, has ended with the carol “Still, still, still.”

It’s a lovely carol that captures what to me is the essence of Christmas Eve–a calm yet joyful anticipation. Something magical is going to happen. Peace is possible. Pure love, in the form of a divine newborn baby, will come into the world. No matter how awful the world is today, tomorrow everything is going to be OK. You can relax now:

Still, still, still
One can hear the falling snow
For all is hushed
The world is sleeping
Holy Star its vigil keeping
Still, still, still
One can hear the falling snow

Sleep, sleep, sleep
‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth
The night is peaceful all around you
Close your eyes
Let sleep surround you
Sleep, sleep, sleep
‘Tis the eve of our Saviour’s birth

Dream, dream, dream
Of the joyous day to come
While guardian angels without number
Watch you as you sweetly slumber
Dream, dream, dream
Of the joyous day to come

There’s a another piece of music that expresses the peace of these days in a profound way. While everyone has a blast bellowing out the Hallelujah chorus at the local Messiah sing-along, there’s different movement in the Christmas portion of that work that expresses the depth of what the appearance on Earth of “God with us” can mean:

Come unto Him, all ye that labor
Come unto Him, ye that are heavy laden
and he will give you rest
Take his yoke upon you, and learn of Him
for He is meek and lowly of heart
and ye shall find rest
and ye shall find rest
unto your souls.

That’s what the days of the week between Christmas and New Year’s feel like to me. Rest. I can stare out the window for an hour without guilt, knowing that I am loved, and the only thing expected of me is love. Stop worrying about how much weight I gained, how much money I spent, and what the stock market might do in the new year. I can embrace the stillness as a gift of time out of time. Slow down. Breathe. Make a cuppa tea, have another slice of log cake, and sit down to regard the beauty of the Christmas tree as the darkness sets in. I can listen to the rain.

Wishing you the peace of a completely unscheduled, uneventful, utterly still and quietly joyful few days as the year comes to a close, I remain,

your slowing-down-and-heading-up-for-a-nap myself,

Ridiculouswoman