Home with croupy daughter instead of going to the wedding dress rehearsal and dinner…

Now, at 1:55 AM, Maddie and I are watching a purple dinosaur (so retro now, I’m trying to think of it as a cult classic...a campy flick) demo a fire truck.  Fire truck!  Just like the story I told her out on the back patio, the new concrete a great spot for telling another installment of “Princess Madeleine the Firefighter”, a heroine who only removes her tiara to don her helmet.

After telling that tale, Maddie and I sat for a few moments, bathed in the glow of moonlight so bright she wanted to know why it seemed like day. 

And then, I told the story of Christmas.  In the cold November night, a sick child nestled warmly in my arms with a cocoon of blankets around us, it seemed intimate...personal. 

Humbling, actually. 

I’m not a person who worries about literal interpretation, and while I find it interesting how the translation of the scriptures affects our understanding of Biblical stories, I don’t fret about what other people believe about the story of the Nativity.  Frankly, I think that in the big picture, even if it isn’t literal, it’s beautiful.  Even if you aren’t a Christian, it’s a fascinating, subversive story.  God made human, born in the stable muck amongst people unwilling to offer shelter, too busy with their own lives to notice those in need around them.  A man willing to risk ridicule, a young woman endangering her life for faith.  Not that I shared my take on the social values of the era, what with Maddie being THREE and all.

Even if it didn’t happen the way we learned in Sunday school, I love the idea that a religion is centered around a birth so humbling.  So much of organized religion is pomp and circumstance, traditional trappings meant to show the dignity and reign of God.  Not the story of the Nativity, however.  No, it’s a point of access for anyone who journeys in the dark, searching for someone to offer shelter.  Comfort.  Someone to make room at the inn for all us weary travelers.  For me, telling the story to Maddie, her head laying heavily against my chest, it made getting up in the middle of the night worth it.