Dear one,
As I gaze out our windows, the sky is an even-grey; the grass is still vibrant green; and the finches, jays, woodpeckers, and cardinals flit about the feeders. The spruces, white pines, and arborvitae are swaying; the birches, maples, and oaks are stark and barren; and the thermometer might rise above freezing. This is “my world,” but in making this observation, I do not mean to suggest that mine is necessarily a world apart: sheltered, isolated, and removed from the “real world”—the world of viruses, shootings, political egos, stock-market psychology, and spies. (One can always question what is “real” and what isn’t.) Rather, as I think of “my world,” is it simply common?
Not too long ago, I came to a clearer understanding: after years of pondering—although my pondering could not have been deep—I began to recognize the nature of “the sign.” Because of our present season, you might well recall that the shepherds—who often lived far removed from pleasure, privilege, and even simple hygiene—were told:
“And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12).
For some time I had asked: How is that a sign? What profound image lies within those words? Swaddling cloth? A manger? Of course, for years the answer to these questions might have been wafting about me, like the scent of a “fir” candle; but I was oblivious, searching for something deep, whereas the answer and message was simple: the Child born that night, whom the angels heralded as “Savior,” “Messiah,” and “Lord” was born among very ordinary albeit impoverished folk. Oh, He came from a lineage of pedigree, but the signs all indicate that He would live among those of “low birth,” and by so doing, He would lift and restore the common and mundane to wonder and glory. Was His a common birth? In some regards, "yes" and "no."
For common, everyday people His birth was as it should have been: perhaps rustic but very human. The wonder of His birth is that shepherds received the birth announcement; that His first sights, sounds, and scents were those of an average Palestinian dwelling; and that He would soon be familiar with earth, wood, and stone.
Jesus’ birth, His Incarnation, affirms and thereby elevates the wonder of being human; it also elevates the worlds that surround us, including feeding sparrows and disgruntled squirrels.
Because of Him, ours is a wondrous, truly uncommon world.
Still gazing,
Stan
Common?