I told him
that each year at Christmas
I like to read Christmas stories and Christmas poems.

He said,
"No one does Christmas cozy like Dirk!"

And I thought of the story by Dickens I'd just read,
about poverty and injustice in 19th-century London.
I recalled the poems of Christmas-Eve loneliness–
of the widowed, the abused, the abandoned.

Christmas is about cozy,
but like all meaningful things,
Christmas is also about paradox,
not only about being welcomed,
but also about being a stranger, an exile,   
    an outcast, a wanderer.
Christmas is about hot chocolate and candlelight,
and also about vulnerability, weakness
    and terrifying authenticity.

Christmas is about loss and hope,
fear and joy,
separation and restoration.
I refer you to the story
that started it all.

Christmas is an opportunity
to experience life and faith
with renewed, unnerving intensity.

To do so requires
stillness,
courage,
surrender.

How's that for Christmas cozy?

Text and image © 2013 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.