Here is a little chapel built along the edge of the forest in Bavaria, Germany. It's an old chapel, from a different time, when people even thought to build chapels in out of the way places. But apparently, this place is still much-loved and kept alive: someone has bothered to decorate the tree with lights, the frescoes on the front wall have been preserved.
A snow path invites us to come closer. No parking lot means we're less likely to be disturbed; we can enter in silence and ponder Christmas as its season draws to a close.
The television commercials suggest the only things worth examining are the wrinkles of my aging skin, the softening of my muscles, the odor in the room, the stubborn stains in the laundry. We want to go deeper than that. A few questions then that might help us along that pondering way.
Have I some felt-sense of gratitude for any experience that touched me deeply this Christmas time: something I heard or saw; someone I met and shared with in some way?
The bright star led the magi to Bethlehem; the Child is called, Light. Do I have any personal awareness of light being born in the darkness of my life?
Perhaps I noticed the donkey and the cow in the manger scene. The donkey is a path-finder. What path am I on? Where is my life heading these days? Let's not just think heaven.
God has a human face at Bethlehem; a smiling face that is fully turned towards us. Do I believe this means anything real for our pained world? Or, however heartwarming the story may be, do I believe we remain alone in the sad-bad news of the day?
Can I say I've changed in any meaningful way this Christmas - that even in some small way, I have evolved and become more human?
Is there any interior thing that I am still carrying, that is old and preventing me from my own new birth: resentment, some worn out piece of my personal story that I know I'd be better off if I'd just leave it off at the chapel doorstep, at its altar, under the bright tree, or in the deep snow?
