It’s Christmas Eve and everyone in the Cook family is finding themselves in the midst of a very compressed holiday season. And I don’t think we are alone.

Are you feeling what I’m feeling?

I honestly don’t think anyone was ready for the disruption and rapid pace that hit us in the last month. We slid right into Thanksgiving with all kinds of anticipation of seeing family in Dayton and navigating (for me, at least) how to maintain the fruits of a recent weight loss while staring at Jocelyn’s pumpkin pie. I only had a lil’ piece…

But then we looked up and realized to our horror that a late Thanksgiving meant a seriously shortened ramp-up to Christmas. The treadmill that we all gleefully jump on of gift buying and cookie baking and friend visiting was quite a bit faster than we had expected. <insert gym fail GIF here>

It wasn’t even a week before I saw it on social media. Tails of utter exhaustion – way more than normal – showed up every time I browsed my feed. The breakneck pace that we have set for ourselves culturally seemed to be taking its toll.

For me, it hit the emotional nadir two weeks into December between another visit to Dayton and the looming day of departure to my sister’s on the East Coast. Realizing that only half of the obligatory shopping was completed and not one tray of Christmas cookies had made it into the oven, Jocelyn resignedly stated, “I just feel behind…”

I think we’re all in that space where “no room in the Inn,” has turned into

…no room on the calendar

…no room in the ‘fridge

…no room in the car

…no room in the budget

Just. No. Room.

But every once in a while, I would get a reminder that would make my heart skip. And even on my self-imposed treadmill, I would stop and consider it. It started with, of all things, a meme on Facebook: “The first Christmas was pretty simple. It’s okay if yours is too.”

Nice sentiment, but in truth it’s a false proposition. The first Christmas wasn’t as simple as we would like to think. It was preceded by a seventy mile journey on foot forced by the tax hungry administration of an occupying foreign power. It involved homelessness and a childbirth in a borrowed barn.

It was celebrated amid a crowd of societal outcasts who had witnessed an otherworldly forth-telling of the news.

It was followed by an escape from the murderous political machinations of a megalomaniacal despot.

Not simple at all…

But it was lowly. Humble. Steeped in self-imposed displacement for Love’s sake.

Invitations to the “larger story” can be packaged in strange ways. Sentimentality – even misplaced and historically flawed – can remind us to take a break from the treadmill and simply look around.

And when I slowed down just a little bit, I heard Love’s beckoning voice calling me into a bit of quiet and contemplation; even when my calendar and task list were screaming at me to ignore it. As if to prepare me, my mind was called to remember little snippets of stories of winter’s quiet over the days that followed.

The call to quiet found its fullest voice on the evening of the Winter Solstice. As I walked to my car in the twilight of the year’s longest night, the most amazing words came to me:

Heed the early darkness ~ the very earth is calling us to stillness and quiet.

And in that moment as I walked – even with a thousand agendas still in my head – I noticed my stride was a little slower; driven less by the expectations of the season and buoyed by the expectancy of what we celebrate.

I’ve come to remember (again) that my inattention dampens neither Love’s presence nor its weight in my life. It only robs me of my enjoyment of it.

So as I walked this Christmas Eve morning, I turned off my customary podcast and kept company with myself alone in the hum of early Washington D.C. traffic. As the noise of my thoughts calmed, I was able to dip just a bit into the presence of Love remembered this day.

I honestly didn’t hear a lot. Contemplation is tricky for this guy – I have a long, long way to go. But the crux of what I heard, I share with you with all humility because I think it is a challenge primarily for me:

Be still – if only for a moment – and drink in the luxury of Love freely and extravagantly given. Let go of what you think you need to do and respond simply out of an overflow of a heart well loved.

I’ll spend the rest of my life overthinking that and trying to “get it right.” But in my clumsy activism, I will cling to the possibility that in a child born into a life of counterintuitive lowliness and countercultural sacrifice, Love has already completed what I still strive for.

I give God thanks for who all of you are in my life and wish you a Merry Christmas.