Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Advent Is Here? Christmas Is Coming? Huh?

C.S. Lewis used the time after his wife's death to write A Grief Observed. It isn't one of my favorites of his, but it's pretty good—and "pretty good" for him is "astoundingly wonderful" for anybody else, in my book.

But I'm not C.S. Lewis. (Shocker, huh?) I feel numb, and I have trouble using my words, which is a strange thing for me. I just feel numb. Tired, too, and maybe a bit sick, as if I have a cold that stuffs up my head with cotton, hay, and rags, as are women's heads in Professor Henry Higgins's world.

O come, O come, Emmanuel? Who's that? What could come to this fog? Why is everybody else putting lights up when there will never be any more light, ever? How can everybody outside my family be excited about something that will never be the same for the rest of my life?

How can I sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?