We have celebrated St. Lucia in a Festival of Light at a time of year when darkness is a more insistent thing than cold. The days are short as a dream. The sun begins to lose its strength earlier in the afternoon and before we know it, it’s time to knock off and grope our way out to the car in the lot. (But for a street light on the corner, we’d likely stumble here and about while we were groping.) Mornings, our hand crawls up the wall, a spider in search of the light switch.
Christmastime brings out the child in us – or, rather, the childhood in us. Now upon us are those brief sweet moments when common things are again uncommon, when our senses are keen with promise and hope.
The season unrolls, a scroll of blessed events. Wherever we look there is color, the enchantment in a single star, the glow of a silver moon. The most common pots are full of treasure, all lights are beacons, every sound a chorus, the smallest homes made castles of joy.
Miracles come quietly, creeping into the human heart without the herald of trumpets until we are filled with their wonder and glory. The most miraculous of miracles are often those at our own fireside, or just outside the door, or across the table, or in the next room.
Wherever we look we see something that advertises the future or embraces the past. The view from the living room, or the office, is the same as it has been for years, but at this special time it can be shatteringly beautiful, as in a new appreciation of life, of the world around us. Christmas brings thoughts of a new affirmation in living, and of all that living can bring.
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Let’s lift a voice
for the unsung
It usually takes a storm to remind us of heroes nearest. Not the gun-toting avatars of the video world, or the camouflage troops at a ball game, but the devoted men and women on the front lines at home.
Or on the snow plows. The winter storms inclined to rake Kansas remind us that nature is indifferent to our affection for autumn weekends. We can recall merchants’ black-day shopping sprees turned icy white and the farmers’ Sabbath turned to Hades frozen over. We’ve had more than one Alberta Clipper with razor winds that could send even St. George’s dragon looking for shelter.
A recent snowfall recalled a couple of years ago, when snow piled in drifts up and over each other, topping earlier layers of ice and sleet. As we huddled in that evening, came the first rumble of the snow plows. Up and down the streets they moved, heaving aside the deposits of Alberta’s wrath, clearing the countless routes for us to make our way – if slowly – as dawn opened next day.
Clearing the streets after a storm rolls on, the work of dedicated and at times fearless public servants. They are on call, at the ready. We are no strangers to nature’s bombardment, and when it happens, city and county crews are out in counter force. Even in the face of great danger – lightning, lashing wind and rain, the whiteout blizzard – crews confront the worst scenarios to restore power, to clear the wreckage, to put the lights on, to smooth the way for us.
The planet’s orbit carries us through apex and nadir, each calendar holding the seasons’ mysterious temperament. In the meantime, a day at a time, there are roads to patch, sewers to fix, water lines to maintain, power grids to strengthen, trash to haul, streets to sweep.
But when that cloud bank turns green and the storm winds heave down and skies slash out – or Alberta blows in again – the crews in public service stand in for us, confront threats and adversity in our behalf, make our lives easier, our community better.
Here is the measure of unwrinkled heroism, the unsung servants who come out in the middle of the night or in the blast of any storm. They are out when no one else should be outdoors or out of the basement, all to make us safer and more comfortable.
The troops of local government are the first line of vigilance and a front line of resolution against onslaught, natural or otherwise. Now and again we should lift a verse of praise and sing it for the unsung.
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