Christmas
THE
Solitary
by Marlene J. Chase
Place
HE LAST EMBERS of Indian practiced kindness are poor substitutes for sion, for it enabled them to enter the
T
summer had long since the relationship the heart craves and aloneness of another. Perhaps only when
burned away, and sharp, whose absence is amplified at Christmas. we retreat to that solitary place can we
unforgiving winds tore at When the holidays end, even though hear the still, small voice of the One who
tender tree limbs. Squirrels touched by a temporary softening of came as the Prince of Peace. Henri J.M.
and birds seemed shocked into silence, human nature, the end seems worse than Nouwen wrote: “The wound of loneliness
and long midafternoon shadows con- the beginning. If nothing of significance is like the Grand Canyon—a deep inci-
firmed the winter solstice, that deepest, has happened in the soul, we are left with sion in the surface of our existence which
darkest heart of winter. Still, in the midst only a hollow memory. has become an inexhaustible source of
of the gloom, people everywhere seemed Christmas was a solitary business for beauty and self-understanding.”
charmed by a mysterious rising hope and those involved in the first Advent as well. The “God-hope” that flickers in the
wondered if it would snow by Christmas. Consider Mary, alone with the poignant soul of every person is fanned at Christ-
It would be my first holiday alone, mas when the Creator is trying once
following the death of my husband. “It more to reach us. He is making His
will be a difficult Christmas,” my friends appeal, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Corin-
told me solemnly . . . and often enough thians 5:20, NKJV). This longing for God
that I approached Advent with a kind of may be what Virginia Stem Owens meant
dread. Someone even reminded me that when she wrote in Wind River Winter,
there are more suicides during the days “I long for a clean Christmas with no gift
surrounding Christmas than at any other but God.”
time of the year. No place is so solitary that He cannot
This year there would be no secretive fill it with Himself. Indeed, we come to
plotting of what to buy the children for Him in our solitude and discover in Him
Christmas, no laughing over the tree that everything. When Christmas has fully
looked so perfect in the lot and so huge come to the heart, we find ourselves full
and crooked in our living room. And on and rich and ready to share in joyful
quiet evenings when the fire used to syn- community.
chronize the tangled moments of a hectic knowledge that her child, born of God, “The wilderness and the solitary place
day, I would know only the comfort of was destined to die. The wise men were shall be glad . . . and the desert shall
past Christmases and the deafening roar alone as they trudged across the desert rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah
of my solitary place. with no affirmation and contrary to the 35:1). He will take the wilderness (the
Why are the lonely more lonely at edict of the king. Old Simeon languished untamed heart ruined by sin) and the
this time of year? Cut off from a loved alone in the Temple yearning to see the solitary place (devoid of His presence) and
presence, we do not welcome the joyous Lord’s Christ before death claimed him. leave in the wake of Christmas a blossom-
season, especially if we do not possess Each awaited Christmas in solitude of ing garden.
connection to the One whose birth is the heart—the place that sin can leave bar-
reason for the celebration. In such condi- ren, hopeless, and desperate. Marlene J. Chase, retired editor in chief and
tion, we are more aware of our paucity; Their aloneness became a means of literary secretary for Salvation Army Publica-
our sense of loss is acute. Good cheer and blessing, of understanding, of compas- tions in the U.S., resides in Rockford, Illinois.
12 EVANGEL • DEC 2008
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