The sound of the bell washed out
over the sparkling hillsides, breaking the silent night with a smooth silver
tone—just once, and then the silence overwhelmed it again.
I smiled. “Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one!”
Nothing happened. I hadn’t really
expected anything to. The sudden appearance of a ghost at one in the morning
this Christmas Eve would have shocked me just as much as Marley did Scrooge.
The moment had passed, and things were as it should be: cold, crisp, and very
clear. I gave up staring toward the church steeple and concentrated on not
falling as I strode down the ice-glazed sidewalk. Whoever had shoveled it had
given it their best shot, but they hadn’t quite reached the concrete.
It’s cold. My phone says that
nature only has four of her degrees tonight. I wonder idly which four. A bachelor’s,
two masters, and a doctorate, perhaps? She gave the rest up. They’ll be back
someday, but tonight their absence can be felt by every inch of my cold legs.
Only a thin (it feels thinner than normal) layer of blue sweatpants stands
between them and all those missing degrees, sucked into the winter degree
vacuum. As long as I keep moving, they’ll survive. The rest of me is fine. My
power plant is insulated by four layers of cotton and polyester blends; my toes
wiggle securely in a massive pair of twelve-year old floppy, toasty boots. If I’d
been able to remember where my long johns were stowed last winter, I’d be
perfectly outfitted for this little stroll.
Everything sparkles. The snow, the
trees with their thin layer of snow and thinner layer of ice, the deceptively
dark-hued roads. Streetlights and starlight glitter off every surface. There
might be a moon floating somewhere too, but I can’t find her. The brightest
thing in the heavens is a lone star in the south that I’m fairly sure is Venus,
the Morning Star, an appropriate symbol of hope to men for millennia, just like
this Christmas Eve.
I’m sure anyone who saw me trudging
along through the three inches of snow wondered why I was there. An hour past subfreezing
midnight isn’t exactly a popular time for a constitutional. One of the perils
of working a night shift is that your clock can get really off, and I woke up this
midnight fresh as a proverbial summer daisy. It felt like a good time to return
the library books that were due yesterday. So I layered up, and off I went.
I actually had more company than I
expected. A diesel truck grumbled its way down Washington Street, loudly
voicing its displeasure for being forced to labor in the icy darkness. I
glimpsed a party through yellow windows playing board games, coats and hats
still on in an attempt to bolster poor insulation. Later, as I returned down
Main, a quartet of WSU students wobbled stridently up the opposite side, their
restraint removed and chilly bodies fortified by internal application of
alcohol. Further on, the two lone employees of a bar stood together just inside
door, waiting the fifty minutes until closing time would let them go home.
Twenty years ago they would have been flirting. Now they’re just both on their
phones.
But in spite of these, except for
my own crunchy tread over potato-chip snow, it was remarkably quiet. I
understood why all the old carols always mention the stillness of winter. In
the days before the internal combustion engine, it must have been still indeed.
Even so much further south in the bleak lands of Palestine, the coming of those
angels would have been a mighty shock to shepherds used to “the bleak
midwinter, when half-spent was the night.”
My thoughts drift from silence to
carols, to my family far away in the warmth of Texas and Kuwait, and to my
friends home with their families in places far and near, and I pray that they
will know how blessed they are. For every Christmas many of us get a tiny
glimpse of what the Eschaton, Tolkien’s Eucatastrophe, will be like. For we
will be home, everlasting joy and food and drink will flow in abundance, and
the family will be complete. We will go from wandering alone in the cold night—as
fun as that sometimes is—to the warmth of the flame imperishable and the everlasting
light of the Morning Star. My final thought as I knock the snow from my treads
and twist the knob, ready to warm my knocking knees? Never take Christmas for
granted. But don’t think that’s as good as it gets, either.
