Joyeuse Noel

Church ready for Christmas Eve service

It's early evening on Christmas Eve now; the light is fading, and people are returning to their homes to make ready for evening church services, family gatherings around a meal table or midnight masses.  What hustle bustle of preparations there was is now ended.  It is time for calm, for reflection, for sharing the company of family and friends.  I like Christmas better here in France; it's still slow enough to enjoy.

My sister and I Skyped today and she clued me in to the Festival of Lessons and Carols broadcast from King's College Cambridge.  This was always a part of my Christmas Even when I lived on the East Coast, but had to be foregone when I moved to Brookings, as there was no radio station that carried the broadcast.  How happy I was to hear it again today!  Thank you, BBC, for reuniting me with this part of my Christmas heritage.  With all of the uprooting and changes I have brought about this year, perhaps I am unduly happy to latch onto something familiar. I feel firmly anchored now that I have heard Once in Royal David's City. 

No great pipe organ of a cathedral

I will head out soon to the Christmas Eve service at the Protestant church here in Carcassonne.  It won't be as professional nor as grand as that of King's College.  It will be done with love and in the spirit of service. We will hear the ancient words of Luke, and we will all gather round the creche, as did those mythical visitors. 

I will come home and read Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, remembering Sue and Tom, who gave me the little book all those years ago, and Lorraine Williams, who read from it so beautifully at more than one ORCA concert.   I will think of my friends and family, who, while they are geographically far away, are perhaps closer than ever before.  And as I turn out my light, I will smile and send gratitude out into the sacred darkness.

Joyeuse Noel--Merry Christmas.  Bonne fete.  Happy Holiday!

Creche