Finding Christmas.

It’s been an odd sort of Christmas this year. For as much as I’ve tried to ignore it as usual, something of its essence has refused to remain quiet. It pressed itself remorselessly against the creaky, reluctant door of my mind, persuading the rusty hinges to give just a little more until something of its fabric could be glimpsed in the dark recesses beyond.

What I saw, or thought I saw – for the light was low and the images vague – was not the Christmas of common practice. The three foundations comprising the spiritual, the commercial, and the traditional were entirely absent. There was no merrymaking, no gathering of the flock, no gift giving, and no thanks held up to any saviour of mankind.

There was only a kind of musty melancholy, but not the depressed kind. There was no joy, no excitement, no fear, no pain; and yet it was not without substance. There drifted from it the need to muse quietly on a life lived thus far, and to accept the challenge to look into some celestial mirror and take stock. I saw the Green Knight come to Arthur’s court at Christmas; I heard his challenge and felt Gawain’s response. And out of the darkness flowed some intimation of great significance about the midwinter festival.