I’ve been taking my time putting Christmas decorations away.

            Long ago, everything came down on Twelfth Night, January 6 -- when, tradition says, the Magi from the east visited Jesus and brought gifts of gold, and myrrh, and incense. 

            We put them all away. Somewhere. That wasn’t part of my job. 

            My job was to take the tree and any evergreen wreathes outside. To burn them in the yard. A single match usually sufficed to demonstrate the combustibility of coniferous forests. 

            This year has been different. 

            Some of my Christmas decorations have come down, and been tucked away in boxes in the basement storage room. But some are still out. 

            Because I think, I don’t want Christmas to end. 

“God in a stranger’s hello, God in a raised hand of greeting…” So begins a short daily prayer recently published by the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland.  

            The prayer recognizes that COVID-19 restricts many interactions we used to take for granted. 

            It goes on, “Those simple gestures, be it a glance toward a passer–by who looks back with a nod, or a friendly question about what breed of dog you’ve got there, give us moments of connection.”

            As a dog walker, I relate to that prayer. That’s how I too experience life these days. 

            Corrymeela anticipates a return to normal, whatever that is: “When instead of passing by or getting only as far as small talk, we will be able to draw close and learn more from each other.”

            I don’t see that happening. Not anytime soon. COVID-19 will not go away.

We had a mighty wind one night. It sounded like a freight train rumbling by outside – loud enough that I assumed the snowplow must be coming down our street, dragging its blade along the pavement. 

            But it wasn’t. 

            When I woke, I looked outside. No snow. 

            The house was eerily quiet. And chilly.

            No power. No light. No heat. 

            And no phone. Not even the hard-wired landline had a dial tone. 

            Plus, the battery on my cell phone was down; I couldn’t recharge it.

            No internet, no email – the cable modem needs plug-in power. 

            I thought I could at least have a shower. No water.

The world watched last week as a mindless mob took over the U.S. Capitol. 

            It was not an attempted coup, as many pundits alleged. If it were a coup, they would have been much better organized. 

            This gang had no plans beyond disrupting Congress. Desecrating the temple of government. Looting a few souvenirs. Putting their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. 

            For a second or two, those TV cameras caught a woman brandishing a placard: “Jesus Saves.”

            There, I think, is the overlooked key to this demonstration. 

            At last count, 82 people had been arrested and 13 charged, as a result of the riot. When – and if – they come to trial, I expect that some will invoke religious freedom as their defence. 

            They were only doing what Jesus did, they’ll argue, when he cleared the crooks and shysters from a courtyard of his temple in Jerusalem. He didn’t attempt to take over the temple either. He shut it down for a while, then cleared out. He had made his point.

Between my wife’s death and Covid-19 isolation, I’ve spent a lot of time alone this last year. 

            There’s a difference between being lonely and being alone. Lonely is a state of mind; alone is a fact. 

            In the silence broken only by my skis swooshing along the tracks, I amused myself thinking of the benefits of being alone. 

·      No negotiating about where to go, or when and where to meet. 

·      No competition about who’s going to drive.

·      No disagreements over what to pack for lunch. No juggling menus to suit someone else’s dietary needs. 

·      No hurrying to keep up with someone younger and fitter. 

·      No reason not to stop, to catch a breath, to take in the view.. Or, in other settings, to pull off the road to read a historical marker, or to visit some natural wonder you’ve always rushed past before. 

·      No need to phone anyone just because you’re running a little late.

·      And in a broader sense, no interruptions in the middle of a thought, a moment of meditation, or of prayer.