Have a Defiant Christmas

Attributed to and contributed by John Shea, writer, storyteller and Catholic theologian, written in 2000:

Some Christmas I am going to send out a Christmas card that will look like this. On the cover there will be three images. The first image will be a star brightly shining but it will be surrounded by darkness. The second image will be an evergreen but it will be surrounded by trees without leaves. The third image will be the traditional one, it will be a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, but the child will be surrounded by a ramshackle stable. When you open the card, inside there will be in very bold print, "Have a Defiant Christmas!"

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The first image will be a star brightly shining but it will be surrounded by darkness. 

The second image will be an evergreen but it will be surrounded by trees without leaves.

The third image will be the traditional one, it will be a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, but the child will be surrounded by a ramshackle stable. 

When you open the card, inside there will be in very bold print, "Have a Defiant Christmas!"

Shea goes on to say that there is defiance in the light and darkness cannot overcome it.  About the lone tree with greenery when all other trees have no branches, he says the evergreens defy defoliage and give us a sense of life.  The baby in a ramshackle manger? Well, that is imagery for a child who was sheltered and given hospitality in a land and time when there was great rejection.

Shea's entire article can be accessed here where he talks more in depth about the imagery.

A defiant Christmas?  It's something to ponder.  Read others' Pauses in Advent here for more meditations during this Christmas season.  I'll be having a Defiant Christmas and hope you do as well.