The Holy Innocents

 On December 28, our family hit a Christmas low. The night before, my spouse and I and the two youngest had driven to see a spectacular light show and hour away and sang Christmas carols all the way there and back. We went to bed happy and full of wonder. I hoped my son, who is the only other early riser in our house right now, would sleep in because we were up late. 

The next morning, I woke up feeling icky (don't worry, this isn't going where you think it is), and I got up and realized I HAD to run, immediately--my body desperately needed it. But when I put in my earbuds to listen to Christmas music, I just wasn't feeling it. So I said my usual silent prayers instead, then listened to a podcast. I didn't sit in front of the Christmas tree like usual; instead, I did a longer work out, and some yoga, and got dressed as if we were back in ordinary time.

Except the day was not ordinary from there on out. When you live with and love and care for people living with trauma, you know to savor the wondrous, holy, joyful days so that you can can get through the hard ones--the ones where everyone's trauma is front and center and no one is doing OK. But, when those days come, it still feels, all these years later, sudden and scary. Suffice to say, December 28 was a hard one. 

It was a very, very difficult day, and a late and difficult night. The next morning, my son was up before dawn as usual, wanting to go downstairs to cuddle in front of the tree, but I hadn't had my morning time yet, and I was tired and grouchy. I gave him his meds and tried to go back to bed. In the process, I grabbed my phone--never a great idea--but stopped myself before diving into the news or social media. Instead, I looked up one of the many spiritual sites I occasionally view, because I knew the meditations there are usually short and I couldn't do a longer one this morning. 

The meditation, from the previous day, simply read: "The fourth day of commemorates the slaughter of the innocents. Black lives, kids in cages, those lost needlessly to COVD-19 and the climate crisis--those are our holy innocents." 

That wasn't what I needed. I am a person who believes that the Deep Love that some call God is a God who turns us always toward the things we don't want to see, insistently but gently, whispering, "What is the work you are called to do here?" I am a person who believes that answering that question, day in and day out, is what living a life of faith is all about.

But I had been looking for something to calm my anxiety, and this wasn't it. I didn't have much time to ponder it, anyway, because my son called out for me, and then I was thrown quickly into facilitating some healing conversations among family members--to do the hard work that is my calling. We had those conversations, tearful and joyful all at once, and then we moved slowly into our day. 

The snow was falling, thick and beautiful, and it was a good day for reading, and cooking, and napping, and just being together. Things fell into a kind of calm normalcy, though all day long, I felt a deep anxiety in my belly that I couldn't quite shake. When I went to run errands, I found myself extraordinarily inefficient, and everything took longer than it should have. We started supper later than planned as a result, which meant we had to make something different than what we had planned. 

Still, everyone else seemed to have settled, but I couldn't shake my anxiety. Later in the evening, the rest of the family started a movie I wanted to see while I was putting our son to bed but before walking the dogs, and I grew even more irritable. Why hadn't they waited for me?

I suited up into my winter gear and put the dogs on leashes. Our old dog, who spends most of the day sleeping--and who was still wearing his Santa suit--was simply exuberant. He tugged and tugged and when I accidentally dropped his leash while stooping to pick up his poop, he ran--and I mean, ran. Our larger, younger (though not really that young) dog and I began to chase him, but he was fast. He ran and ran until he was out of my sight and I felt a deep fear grip me when I saw headlights--what if he ran into the road and was run over? 

And just as I had that thought, he reappeared, running and yelping until he was at my feet and jumping up onto me, as if to say, look how delightful this snow is, what are you doing brooding over a day that is past? 

And so we walked on, until we reached a corner that usually has spectacular Christmas lights. Except the family had already taken them down, and I felt a deep sadness, and then another rise of irritation. Don't these people know Christmas isn't over until January 7? And then I turned to look at the house beside that one--which I'd noticed before, but which had been overshadowed all season by the house beside it. 

The dogs stopped. They both sat down. We just stared at the beautiful star above the front door, and the manger scene below it. All around, colored lights twinkled and glowed--these I had noticed before--but not the manger scene or star. The manger scene was empty of characters except the three main ones--Joseph, and Mary holding her son. 

I thought of the decision they had to make so suddenly to leave that barn (or, as some historians believe, the home they later lived in) to flee to Egypt. The scene before me could have been the family's last quiet embrace before leaving under the cover of night and in fear for their baby's life. It was intimate, beautiful.

I thought of the Holy Innocents--all the under-two-years-old boys who were killed in that time because a greedy king wanted to kill the one who was, briefly, heralded as the next king. Just before coming downstairs I'd scanned the news and learned that Tamir Rice's case was permanently closed, and that Breonna Taylor's killers were finally fired (though not indicted). I'd then begun to read a long article about our president's most recent horrifying actions, but had to put it aside--my son was finally asleep, and I needed to make sure the dogs had been walked--but I got the gist of it. Kings fearing for their fall, willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. Holy innocents who never get justice.

That is part of the Christmas story, too. 

I dropped the dogs back off at the house and opted to keep walking. Everyone inside was safe and calm and happy. As I continued my walk, I began to sing the Christmas hymn, which has a bit of a Christianity-is-the-only-way subtext that is problematic, but also a lovely Christmas-is-the-dawning-of-light-that-illuminates-the-darkness, which I love. 

I walked and sang, walked and sang, and thought suddenly of a text I'd received from my daughter earlier, which I'd never answered. In the old days, before we started Petalouda House, she and I had a tradition of doing a service project of some sort on our birthdays and namedays. She texted me a COVID-proof idea: to clean the gravestones in our hometown and leave flowers randomly for people we didn't know. 

I dismissed it: so much suffering in the world. The dead didn't need us. Also, this particular upcoming birthday, for reasons too complicated to explore here, has brought up my deeply-seated fear of death, and I've been working on this with my spiritual director--the idea of being among graves on my birthday did not sound like a good idea. 

And then I was passing the cemetery, and on impulse, I turned and entered and gently pushed snow off two graves. It was too dark to read them, except I could tell from the size and location of one of them that it was the grave of a child, one of many lost to the flu pandemic that are buried here. 

I had to flee. I couldn't breathe. I ran from the grave, thinking about my worst fears--that my children will make decisions that lead to their death, or succumb to this or another pandemic, or worse, because, yes, I can think of things worse than their deaths--and that nothing I do can prevent these things from happening. There have been so very many near misses with all the children we love, because that is how trauma works. 

Maybe my daughter was on to something. Maybe the dead do need us. Maybe the best way to be present with our fears is to really be there, living them day in and day out as gently and lovingly as we hold our joy. Maybe that's the only way.  

And then, I began to sing again. The second verse came suddenly to me--I didn't even realize I remembered it--in English, "Today, the Virgin bears him who is transcendent, and the earth presents the cave to Him who is beyond reach." In the Greek Orthodox icon of the Nativity, Jesus is pictured lying in a small tomb--a reminder of his death and eventual Resurrection, a reminder that no story is ever over--ever. 

Yes, part of Christmas is our turning to the beginning of a long, unending story, and finding ourselves there, among the shepherds, the wise men, the holy family, the angels, the deep mystery, the Holy Joy. But we can only experience that if we also hear the "lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel crying for her children, refusing to be comforted"--if we grieve the Holy Innocents and set out with the holy family, fearing for our lives. We need to live both the deep joy and the urgency of the world's deep need. We need to be willing to rest in the deep joy and to take risks to meet the world's deep needs. 

The dead still need us. We must never turn away.