Nine Days To Go

       I recently heard a lecture regarding fiction writing, and one of the things said really stood out. He said, our job as writers is not to unravel a mystery but rather to infuse wonder into one. We aren't about removing mystery from the world, simply changing the way one feels about something grand and full of wonder. I found this a unique and clarifying perspective. After all isn't there that part in each of us that loves a good mystery not necessarily because it will be fun to solve but simply because it is mysterious? As for me, it sends shivers down my spine when I am forced to wonder about something I may never comprehend, and half the reason I love cloudy, rainy and foggy days is because it always feels mysterious.
       Right now while my future is thickly obscured and my desires hang in a perilous balance, I've realized that wonder isn't such a bad thing. In fact it's a thing to be cherished, to be exulted in. There's nothing like a bit of mystery to get me up in the morning, and it's amazement and wonder that help push me to work harder than I thought to do before.
       Wonder is one of those things I love about Christmas. It was, all around a bundle of paradoxes when you think about it. The God of the Universe becomes a helpless baby, born to poor parents and announced only to a group of despised shepherds at the bottom of the social ladder. Raised in obscurity in a town out of which nothing good ever came, and honored with kingly gifts only by foreigners. It was indeed an incident to wonder over. If I had decided to write a story about God coming down to earth to save his people, I wouldn't have written it like that...at least, not if I wanted to make it believable. And yet, that was how God chose to draft His history.

     A wonder, indeed.

    I'm going to share with you a beautiful old Christmas carol from our very own Appalachian mountains. A traditional American carol which does do a bit of stretching with regard to the truth, but beautiful nonetheless.

        It truly captures, I think, some of the awe I feel when I think about the Christmas story.
    
        "If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, a star in the sky or a bird on the wing, He surely could have had it, 'cause He was the King...." ...I Wonder as I Wander.


     Do you ever wonder? I know I do - often - and I wouldn't have it any other way.


         Until tomorrow, friends.

   ~ Christianna