The wind is rattling the door shutters in the apartment, but inside it is cozy and calm. It's what I've always wanted Christmas Eve to be, yet what it rarely is. Thessaloniki itself is a bustling commotion of people, strolling in plazas and stopping at cafes and shops along the way. There is a festive sense of waiting, evoking childhood memories anticipating the joy and surprises of Christmas.
Thessaloniki is not a new city for us, so we drink in the familiarity even as we explore new places and sights. It's a special city - a city of miracles and churches, of children caroling out of tune on Christmas Eve, pocketing money and chocolates, and priests coversing with strangers in coffee shops. Time stops as you sit in cafes or tavernas, in churches or apartments.
Being Orthodox we feel at home in these churches, the saints guiding us through every icon, an urgency and expectancy in their gaze, as if to say "Watch and wait - you'll see. These things you worry over, the cares you hold tight, the burdens you bear - lay them down for a moment. Stop for a moment. Be enveloped in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit." This faith is like this city - familiar yet new; timeless, enduring, ageless yet ever-available.
It is good to stop. It is a gift to be still. My life has taken on the familiar urgency of a large American city and I find myself longing for the time we had last year, longing to stop and reflect. We try and set aside time, and yet the endless tasks, scrolling, time-wasting, and real work creep in making us believe that we are trapped.
As I stop this afternoon, I can't help but think about birthing babies. It's something I know well, my earned fact as it were. Each birth was unique - seemingly the only commonality being myself and my husband. But there was one other thing that was common in my births, and that is that time stopped. Nothing mattered but the birth of that baby. Nothing. Each labor pain was separated by what felt like an eternity. And then, with the "I can't take it any more" pain of transition, the work of pushing began until a cry broke time, and a baby was born. Time stopped, a baby born, a miracle.
The mystery of birth and the mystery of the incarnation - both invite us into a timeless miracle. A baby born, a world changed.
This afternoon, in the quiet of a rented apartment in a city in Greece I will myself to enter into the timelessness that I entered into during those long hours of labor. I will myself to enter the timelessness that believing the mystery of incarnation requires, the timelessness that this city, this season, and my faith urge me toward. The timelessness that birthing babies necessitates. The timelessness of a "long expected Jesus, born to set his people free."
Merry Christmas Eve! May you too enter the timelessness of the miracle of Christmas.
