Medusa [An Annie Lennox Advent]
If you’ve been following the bouncing-ball, ‘grateful for’ this year
is a blank I am struggling to fill in. Advent my favorite, joy-filled
time of year feels intensely somber, like Medusa is lurking around the
corner; gaze and be turned to stone? Keep averting the profane normalcy
of today’s society?
Christmas hymns, seasonal festive music, movies and yes, even “A
Charlie Brown Christmas” all a numb boredom…however, the album Medusa by
Annie Lennox feels seasonally appropriate.
I waited for the ashes of my 17+ year feline companion “to come”
home to do my decorating, yes, even my little Charlie Brown Christmas
tree. It is not his physical absence, it is not that my physical
Christmas gifts have been given, it is not that I look around seeing the
physical reality of our world or even the physical reality staring back
in the mirror. Perhaps, the hidden scars & crosses I bear.
Or perhaps, it is the real of the Christmas story; the portion
lacking: infancy—adulthood of Jesus Christ–hidden. Hidden below the
surface.
*not my image or property*
Curious wondering with tones of I can’t even imagine. What was Mary
and Joseph’s life like those years? Not to mention our dear little
Savior–the “terrible twos” to the awkward-phase teenage years? His
realization of I am He! Not to mention Mom and “Stepdad” (yeah, think
about that!) parenting the worlds SAVIOR…
I can’t even imagine, yet I try, over and over again. The imagery
at times in my mind feels cute, fun clips and others feel worrisome…
Maybe this is the seed of my 2018 Advent somber tones. Unknown.
Secret. Hidden. Uncertain. Tied together with Faith. Faith &
Hope in the same unknown. That in between, much like my own life’s
places of in between–hidden. The same but different, lacking.
12/2018 Tiger Albee Photo