Tag: joy

On the front of the card is the picture of a small one room house with corner windows that reveal a Christmas tree with frantically blinking coloured lights. It’s about five minutes from town on the corner of a gravel logging road and the old highway. Beside it there’s a vacant lot, long brown grass and weeds scattered with rusty metal machine parts and wooden pallets. Animal bones in the ditch, paper cups, broken glass and tossed trash. The night is dark and miserable, rain pounding as I drive by. I’ve always been aware but never noticed the place. Tonight I can’t help but think that to spend an evening in that room crowded with flashing coloured lights would drive me out of my mind. There’s an edge of criticism or judgement in the thought. A blind spot.

I catch myself as the card opens, and I see the two of them sitting on the sagging, plaid couch holding hands, starring at the tree. Delighted. Their story of course is a mystery, but I almost missed them altogether.

May your heart and mind be open, and your season filled with peace and delight.