Choir, Choir, Life With Animals, Christmas Blessings

 We, as in the Sanctuary Choir, are singing at a genuine Midnight Mass this evening, again at a Christmas Day Mass, and then at our regular Sunday Mass. All of which fills me with delight, and a certain feeling of anxiousness for our music director who has these masses, and many more. I am a bit concerned that at midnight my voice will let me down, but I am happy to say that we have a soprano who can hit the high A flat in O Holy Night, so that the rest of us don't have to. In fact, given the lateness of the hour I might just sing alto. All will go well, to paraphrase Julian of Norwhich. And all will be well. The savior is born.   

Life this year has been fuller than I would have thought a year ago. We have two new rescue animals, both acquired in their baby-hood, and now both are rambunctious toddlers. Our very large puppy, (think Clifford the big red dog) is a pit bull, bull dog mix. Her name is Nami, and she couldn't be more gentle, and sweet. She is also disastrously prone to knocking things over, and chewing important household items like the living room rug. I took the elder dog, by comparison to Nami, a settled and even quiet rat terrior, on a walk with Nami. One leash in each hand. All was going well until the two dogs decided to chase each other, and wound themselves and their leashes around me, dragging me to the ground and barking furiously, whether  from frustration, or hilarity I couldn't tell. Oddly, the people nearby who witnessed this mayhem did not lift a finger to help. Which was ok. I did not require an ambulance, although a hand to help me out of the tangled leashes would have been nice. But we got ourselves untangled, and upright, and continued home where I vowed never again to walk two dogs at once.

The rug has been moved into a gated room, the sofa is covered with a quilt, and our Christmas tree this year consists of a few lovely branches put into a pot and surrounded by lights. It sits up high in the gated room with the rug. Which is also the room with the presents, and the food. We are leaving nothing to chance.

Our other new permanent resident is the most hilarious cat I have ever known. His name is Maestro, pronounced Meestro, like "I like Meeces to peeces." Maestro, or Meestie, as we call him, enjoys drains with running water, and likes nothing better than to hop into the shower and stare at the water running down the drain. Just this afternoon, I came into our bedroom to see Bruce with a hair dryer , drying out Meestie from his latest water excursion. This was, by the way, right after Nami disgraced herself jumping into a friend's pool and then panicking, so that when Annie brought her home, I heard many loud exclamations of "You are in trouble!" 

Maestro likes to get as close to the TV as possible to watch whatever is on, which means inevitably that he is sitting on the table nose to nose with the TV. I mean, it's not a big problem, because there is very little that we watch, so the TV is rarely on. But occasionally, late in the evening after a long day Bruce will sit down to watch a game. And when an exciting basketball game is interrupted at a crucial moment, just as someone big and strong has hurled a ball across half the court to try and tie up the game with a three point shot, you want to see the play and not the cat.

In his younger years, one of our elder cats got tangled up in some sticky fly paper and spent a good fifteen minutes dashing around the house trying to rid himself of the offense. I predict that such occasions will multiply with our Maestro.

And into lives such as ours and yours there came a saviour. 

I was recently speaking with the priest who first instructed us in the Catholic faith, and then later, preached at the mass when we were received into the Catholic Church. He looked at me and said, "You are God's masterpiece." Me, the person who had just revealed moments of blindness, weakness, and un holiness. 

And so are we all. Masterpieces in the making.  If only we could remember that, and believe it. If only we could rely on the truth that God didn't just create the universe and then sit back to watch it writhe in pain. God came to us as a child, from the womb of Mary, in Bethlehem,  to walk with us, to love us, to turn us by the hand toward heaven, to redeem us. God with us. In our confusion, it's easy to overlook his presence. But God was there on the pavement with me when I was pulled to the ground, and more significantly, he is there when I fail, and fail again to love.

O Come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. He came, and is coming even now!

May the manifold blessings of the Incarnation, the birth of our saviour be yours. 

Merry Christmas!