Moving forward

Chirstmas is a time, to me, when family gets together.  But what happens when you have little or no family to gather with?  I have many times spent Christmas among other families and been part of their celebrations.  This year I chose to be alone.  I chose to think about what Christmas means to me and what role it plays in the rebirth of a spirit.  I am sad to realize that what I hold so dear about Christmas was lost so long ago.  I remember spending Christmas at my aunt's house, when my uncle was still alive.  As a pre-teen everything seemed charged with pretty lights, music, a meal together at the big table and opening gifts that were hidden under the Christmas tree.  I've never been able to give that same feeling to my son, unfortunately.  Perhaps, and there are always the 'what ifs', if I had not moved away from family I would have been the one to carry on that family tradition.  But I did leave and I would not be the person I am had I stayed anyway.  So I can cherish the memories of Christmas and move forward now to find a new meaning, a new family in my future to create and share the renewal of Christmas in a new light. 

Last week I reconciled with my church.  In doing so I felt the warmth of the gift of grace passed to me.  It gave me a new outlook on life with which I can move forward.  I have lost feelings of home and I wish I could go back north.  It is something that never leaves me but it is not yet time.  I look forward to the Camino now with greater fervor.  It is a path I see with clarity and know that I am to find a new direction there.  It is no longer a penance to seek a pilgrimage, but as the priest has told me, it is a way to find a new journey in life.  We are not all so thoroughly good in our beliefs in religion; we are human, and flawed.  But in faith we find something that guides us and makes us not simply a community but opens the doorway to that path that we can journey on to give our life meaning.  I'm not sure it really matters what you chose as your religion.  It is only in faith in something better, whether that is within us or beyond us I don't know that there is much difference.

So when I look for why I want more in life it is not such a selfish desire then.  I find I have an interest in what is the greater world and what is in my world and how I can create a better world all around me.  This semester at the university I am studying in depth the medieval world.  The first book I have to read for the first week of one of my classes is about the 'Cult of Saints', which seems to say, how Christianity developed and why we seek to venerate what we consider holy relics. This is remarkably pertinent to the object of pilgrimage and my pilgrimage, in general, obviously.  And so it gives me thought and guidance through this holiday season that I did not expect to gain.  Perhaps this is all a part of the grace we are given when we begin to understand faith.