That Christmas Moment When the World Stops

-
nuchylee/freedigitalphotos.net/
As a child, I loved Christmas Eve, but not for the obvious reasons.  Sure, Santa Claus' arrival lurked in the back of my mind, but Christmas never really began until my parents took us to the Christmas Eve service at church.

The sanctuary of our small church basked in an atmosphere of expectation as the minister lit the last candle in the advent wreath. Beautiful glass lamps hung from the wooden-beamed ceiling, their light glowing on the aged walls.  At night, the sanctuary took on a mysterious air, the stained glass windows subdued to darkness, the world outside awaiting the light of the world. On Christmas Eve, our little church waited for the true Light of the world, and the place became magical to me.

We heard the story of Christmas interspersed with songs like The First Noel, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  I don't know about you, but I always found the experience of the shepherds the most wonderful.  Imagine.  These hard working men spent an ordinary day tending their flocks.  Maybe they fought off a predator or sought out fresh grazing land that day. Did God watch them with glee knowing they would receive the ultimate birth announcement that night?  If anyone told them that morning that a multitude of angels would announce the birth of the savior to them as they rested after a long day's work, what would they have said?

And then, the moment arrived. Light shone all around them. A host of angels declared the Christ's birth. How amazing!

In our Christmas Eve services, the ushers turned down the church lights, and we focused on the flickering candles at the front of the sanctuary.  One by one, we shared our light, voices lifted, singing Silent Night.  Candlelight reflected off our upturned faces and the eyes of those around me sparkled with the joy of Christ's birth and the wonder of this special moment.

I'm glad to say, my home church has renewed this tradition, and it still gets to me. Every. Single. Time.

More than Santa Claus, more than Christmas gifts, more than feasts, this one event still remains my favorite moment of the season.

What moment of the season holds that moment of peace, joy, and awe for you?

May you find it all year round.  Merry Christmas!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Skin Tone: Describing Your Characters

-
Image
When you write about character's of different races, how do you describe their skin tone? If you've never thought about this, then consider this question: How do the authors you read described persons of color? A few months ago, I attended a webinar about writing diverse characters. The guest was Eliana West of Writers for Diversity . The information she shared felt fresh and valuable, especially related to describing a character's skin tone. I get really tired of seeing African-descended characters described in terms of the goods that drove, and still drive the slave trade--coffee, chocolate, brown sugar. There's some weird psychosocial baggage attached to that.    -- N. K. Jemisin As this quote from author, N. K . Jemisin , indicates, historically, writers have described people of color using food-related descriptors. Many people of color find this offensive. This surprised me, at first, but she has a point, especially when you view it through the quote above. My fir...
Read more

Character Development: Using the Johari Window

-
Image
In my last post, Character Development: the Johari Window , I introduced the Johari Window as a tool for developing your characters. It's important that your character not know everything about their situation. These unknowns can lead to an intriguing story and create possibilities for conflict within the story. How do you use the Johari Window? In this post, I thought I'd provide a simple example of the Johari Window with a character most people know:  Harry Potter. Below, I have filled out the Johari Window as it might appear within the first few pages of book 1, Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone . The Johari Window based on Harry Potter and The Sorceror's Stone Three of the quadrants in this window reveal what Harry doesn't know about who he truly is and what happened to his parents. I could add a lot to the quadrants representing what he doesn't know, but I hope this gives you an idea on how a Johari Window might be used. What do you d...
Read more

He Said, She Said, Who Said? Punctuating Dialogue

-
Image
Courtesy of Morguefile.com I've been focusing my posts on workshops and panels I taught or participated on at the Imaginarium Convention. Although this serves as a poor substitute for the real thing, I can share some highlights. This week, we're going to explore dialogue punctuation. The first thing writers need to learn is how to properly punctuate dialogue. I've discovered, over the years, that many don't know how. Notice in the first example below, the dialogue starts at the beginning of the sentence, and the speaking tag (he said, she said, Paul said, etc.) follows it.  A few points to notice: The first letter of the quotation is capitalized. What the person says is a sentence, so it must be capitalized. A comma comes directly after the quote and INSIDE the quotation marks. You can, also, have a question mark or exclamation point here. There is a space AFTER the closing quotation mark followed by the speaking tag and a period at the end of the sentence. In the next ...
Read more