Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmastide

Originally we were going to be just four
for Christmas dinner.
Dearest one, me,
only daughter and youngest son.

In the end
dearest one's parents
had no invite
so we invited them
and they came.
I felt privileged
to host them on Christmas
when they have many other children
in our community.

Years ago I used to make snide remarks
about the repetitive nature
of my father-in-law's meal time prayer.
He is deaf now. We asked him
to bless our meal.
Yesterday I found his prayer
a comfort.

Change is always possible.

At Christmas eve Mass we found
out that our priest had no invite
so he came as well.
He is from India. It was
interesting to hear of their customs
at Christmas and to get to know him
a little better.

It felt good to open our home.
A miracle, really when last year
and the year before that,
and the year before that,
my health wouldn't have deemed
any of it possible.

Another miracle was seeing my Mennonite
father-in-law and our Catholic priest
sit at the same table
celebrating Christ's birth.

"Where two or more are gathered in my name...."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, Hope. That sounds wonderful. The Mennonite dad and the Catholic father; who'd of thought, eh, considering the atheist and the Mennonite beginnings. Ain't God a scream?

So happy to hear that it was physically possible for you to undertake a large gathering.

Love,
Mich

Heidi Renee said...

Oh this makes me so happy! Merry Christmas Hope! sounds like it was indeed!

Erin said...

So beautiful. So Kingdom.
Cool :)

daisymarie said...

I read this and all I can imagine is God smiling!

I'm so glad you had enough spoons for this.

I hope your heart was truly hugged because reading this hugged mine.

Sue said...

That's awesome, I love how God ordains things we believe are impossible.

Jim said...

How pleasant and how good when His presence is in our midst. At times addition is more than we can breath in and we fall down before it. In other moments He comes as a flow between us and we may not even realize it until afterwards. Good to read of such blessings taking place where you live. May the New Year but continue to bring you and yours His best....

Renee said...

Blessings to you and yours this Christmas Season!