Reflection
The glass of the ornament reflected me back to me. My hands abnormally large. The other decorations nearby distorted. Ornament comes from the Greek to be mean, "Cosmos". Could it be in one ornament is an entire galaxy? So small I could hold the vastness in my hand? So fragile one slip of my grip would cause thousands of sharp shards scattering? So beautiful I can see why the Greeks thought of the universe when gazing at ornaments. We need places and especially people who reflect back to us. We need to hold in our hands something that is at once small and yet larger than we could imagine. We need to sense You, O God, moving with traces of grace not only at Christmas but as we turn the calendar to the next month. "Every hour," O God, the hymn prayerfully proclaims that, "I need thee." Heartfelt. Honest. Humble. Words that seem to be in short supply during this year. As the bickering and bitterness and back-biting human ways take hold.