Shepherds, wise men, angels, Mary, and Joseph, they all rejoiced at the birth of Jesus. They all came from cultures which prophesied and awaited the coming of the Messiah who would save them all. I wonder how dismayed they were to wake up the next morning and discover that there were diapers to be changed, sheep to be fed, and normal life to be lived. The birth of Christ was a long-awaited moment, but it was only the beginning. Years of work and preparation were necessary before the true work of the Messiah could be done.
I am in the middle of raising my children. This Fall has been a tumultuous one, not in events, but in emotions. In no measurable way am I at the culmination of anything, nor at the beginning of something else. It would be nice to have a clear marker on the road, what I have instead is Christmas. I stare at the porcelain nativity scene and look at the baby. I look at the Mary in blue, so serene. They are frozen in the moment of joy, which turned out to be a brilliant moment at the very beginning of a long hard path. But once the path was done, not a one of them would regret it.
I’ll take Christmas as my marker. The fact that I’m here means that 2010 has passed and somehow we all survived. More than just survived, we have grown. I will photograph many things tomorrow and years from now I will look back and be able to see the whats and whys of where we are. I think I will look back and see that this Fall and this Christmas were a beginning. More importantly I’ll be able to see what was begun and why it matters.
I don’t think the real Mary was quite so serene as my porcelain one. She had just been through labor, not the medically-assisted, epidural-ific version of labor that I have experienced. She did natural childbirth. In a stable. With no doctor or nurse, or anyone but Joseph nearby. She must have been frazzled, sore, and high on endorphins. She knew she was at the beginning of something, all new mothers do, but what measure of terror she must have felt when contemplating the path before her. Perhaps she did not experience the Nativity as a moment of pure clarity and beauty, but rather as a muddle which only made sense later.
I think I can have faith in that. I can trust that it will make more sense later when I am not in the middle of so many things.