Frost Light

The bomb cyclone kept us cooped up this weekend as we brought our official Christmas season to a close. The extra time at home, coming off a long holiday break, was a relief. I wasn’t ready to go back. I wasn’t ready to experience the “dreary routines” of ordinary time. I was grateful to escape the chill of all of life’s demands for just a few more days. As I clutched my coffee and stared out the window at the quiet morning, I knew the safety of the escape couldn’t last because it wasn’t real. As I thought about the Feast of the Epiphany and the story of the three kings, I wondered if, within the 12 days of Christmas, I had already lost sight of the gift of Christ’s birth. Instead of longing to escape the cold, am I “longing for God"? Like the wise men, does my love of the Lord draw me out into the cold to find the warmth only He can provide? And, like those three kings, will my encounter with the Lord lead me to follow a different path forward? Perhaps, if I keep my eyes on the star, ordinary time won’t seem so ordinary after all.