Advent – Peace – Day 14 

There were so many Christmas activities I could have done today. I could have hit up Christkindlmarkt, Galaxy of Lights, Wonderland Under Warrior, or Christmas at the Grotto. I could have gone a’wassailing or a’caroling. I could have shopped ‘til I dropped. 

I could have addressed Christmas cards, wrapped presents, made lists, and continued working myself up into a pre-Christmas frenzy. 

This is the next-to-the-last weekend before Christmas. Am I finished with even buying all the presents? No. Am I stressed? Yes, and the tide is rising.

The proof? My resting heart rate this week has steadily increased, and I am under no acute stress. There are no major problems at work, nor are there family crises. I’m sleeping, but my dreams are of anything but sugar plums dancing in my head.

One night I dreamed that Donald Trump had hired me to write screenplays for movies of his life. There were to be eight of them, and they would all be in the style of Leni Riefenstahl, set at Disney World, and each would conclude with Trump as the grand marshal of a Main Street Parade and fireworks show.

No more Mickey’s Christmas Party, I guess.

Just another sign of the wear and tear of the holiday season, and my mind will not stop running scenarios of how to get it all done.

I’m even figuring out how to watch all the shows. I’ve not seen a single one this year. No Frosty, Grinch, or Elf. No Rudolph and no Snow Miser. 

I’ll save Christmas Vacation for when my Christmas vacation really starts, because until then, I’m just running the hamster wheel of great holiday expectations, much like Clark Griswold: “Hallelujah, Holy Shee-tah-tah, Pass the Tylenol!”

So when the opportunity arose this afternoon to go deer hunting with my husband, I asked if I could go along. 

I needed a break, so off to the woods and the fields I would go, where there are few expectations and no crowds. It would be quiet and still, and the warmer temperatures would be a respite from the cold. But I could still be productive: I would take my notebook and write deep and peaceful thoughts, observations from the hunt, or maybe plans for future projects. I would resist looking at my phone—how sacrilegious, to be stuck to a screen in the midst of God’s great creation—and take a break from the hustle and bustle of the season, if only for a little while.

Perched in the stand, next to my husband, I had a view of two scrubby rises below. The blue sky was dotted with fluffy clouds, and the sun shone warm on my face. 

Cawing crows and blackbirds passed over, flying east to west, against an expansive horizon of rolling hills, just green enough with longleaf and loblolly pines to say that there is still life in the land. Winters are short here, and the hickory tree on which the stand is mounted already had buds forming at the tips of each branch.

Occasionally, an intrusive thought made its unwelcome way into my brain: let’s pretend to type out Christkindlmarkt five times each, and let’s think of what else we can have for Christmas dinner other than the usual, and yes, we now know how hunters fall asleep in their tree stands and have accidents. 

This is pretty peaceful.

I thought I should write about it all, capture it all in the moment, but my vision was drawn to the left, to the right, and to the front in the hopes that a deer would walk out of the underbrush and into view. The gentle wind rustled the landscape, dry hickory leaves whispering right beside me, saying, “Don’t you dare work. Be still, be quiet, we’ve got it all covered.” 

I rested. One hour stretched into two. Sweet Husband and I spoke briefly, in hushed tones that would make a librarian proud.

He asked me, “Do you feel like you’re wasting time?”

“No,” I replied, “do you?”

“Nope,” he said, and we turned to look at the field again. 

A songbird perched in a bush with sparse cover, and it sat just as still as I did, even more so. I continued turning my head, silent sentinel on my own roost, keeping a lookout. I gripped my notebook, holding it securely against my chest, a protection against the growing chill as the sun was now hidden behind a cloud bank, the first sign of the approaching cold front that is to send us below freezing for the next two days. 

I felt more at peace than I’d been all week, and I watched on my fitness tracker as my heartbeat slowed to the sixties, which it has rarely done this week, even while I was asleep.

I’d been too busy writing screenplays for Donald Trump, I guess.

The next time I looked for the songbird, it was gone. The patches of blue sky beyond the clouds pinked with the setting sun, and before long, Sweet Husband suggested that we make preparations to leave the stand.

But before we left, the songbirds gave us a Christmas carol of their very own, calling out at the close of day to tell us to keep in time with a simple, slower rhythm. No need to get it all done.

Remember why we celebrate. Remember why we live our lives at all.

There was no wind at the end of the day, not even enough to blow the seeds from the stalks of the paintbrush plants.

All was quiet and still. All was at peace.

My soul included.

Sweet Husband’s verdict: “That was the pits. A nothing day. Warmer weather and wind from the wrong direction. All we saw were birds.

My take: “That was the best day of hunting I’ve ever had. And all I saw were birds.”

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Mark 4:39 ESV

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Reflection and Prayer: What do you do when you’ve maxed out your “peace on Earth, good will toward men” capacity? Nature is always a balm to my soul, drawing me closer to my Creator and helping me remember that His expectations of me are far less than my own overblown ideas. Thank God for His gentle reminders that, in the end, He’s got it all covered.