Journal to a Muse

Another Epiphany

Last night was the year's first meeting of a women't group to which I belong. Most of the chapter members are working women. We are teachers, accountants, legal assistants, office managers, and homemakers. We range in age from our 20's to 60's. We are relatively Anglo-Saxon in background, but have varied life circumstances. Some of us have married and had children, some have not. Some of us have infants at home, some of us have grandchildren across the country.

And I thought that Christmas was over. After all the Rose Bowl Game had already been played (and dramatically at that!!). The neighborhood lighting displays are extinguished and Christmas trees have been lining the alleys and accumulating at recycling centers all over town.

But the hostess of the meeting and her grad-student daughter extended and deepened my Christmas experience very much. Together they share their piano bench and made sweet, sweet music together. They sang together and alone. None of these carols (they were too ethereal to be hymns!) were familiar to me. One sounded like a spiritual. Another sounded as if it might be from the Ozarks or Appalachians. They introduced the Good News and mourned the inevitable suffering. They plead for the nation(s) to be mended and healed.

Sitting in that living room with my diverse friends gave me more of a feeling of Christmas than the gifts, resonant organ voluntaries, sermons, or even sligh bells throughout all of December. My epiphany was about Christmas really being a shared experience of hope and affection.