I’ve always wanted to see the Christmas lights and decorations at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. There is something about this place, it’s hard to put in words but something in both of us stirs once we get past the traffic to Duke of Gloucester Street. The weight of the immediate dissolves as the past emerges in color before our eyes.
I, wrongly thought that going up between Christmas and the New Year would mean the town would be to ourselves. Instead, it was akin to walking down the NC State Fair midway except there were more teeth per person and more Abercrombie and Fitch.
As we walked down the darkened streets it occurred to me that my dad breathed his last as we stood in the images of the past on this very day. I really don’t know what to do with it all but we’ve decided to move forward with life thus this trip. We found a gentleman playing Uilleann pipes sitting on the porch near the blacksmith house calling down the stars as he played one tune after the other. As the horrible images of my dad’s last moments impaled me it was either dance or give up. I chose to dance.
(Maybe a good philosophy for life).
As the sun set the lighting of the Cresset started. Wire baskets filled with wood hung on steel poles lined both sides of Gloucester Street. A workman came through and lit all of the baskets so the street lit up with fire light. Our little world changed as the orange-blue flames illuminated the cobblestone streets and added warmth to the chilly night.
As we sat and watched, sparks broke away like fireflies or fairies escaping for a night’s adventure. Elizabeth noticed it first but people formed small groups around each flaming pot. Some held their hands up in a stance of supplication asking for warmth, others just stood immersed with the firelight twinkling from their eyes content to take in a moment from long ago. For myself, I wanted my cares and pains of the day to be burned off and carried away in the swirling smoke making its way to the heavens.
We seek magical moments. Part of our adventures are to make room for and seek out these moments. I truly believe they occur around us every day but typically we are too busy doing ‘a thing’ to notice. But when noticed, like light reflecting off water, they catch our attention.
Where our attention goes, so goes our hearts.
For 2025, I want to make room for more of God’s magic that He’s laid out for us. I want to participate in seeing and being more in the creation of and witnessing His little miracles He so graciously bestows on us all.
Peace on your Journey this Week.
Jeff
