Leaving Bethlehem

I’m not ready.

I’d rather stay here, in this house.

The company left yesterday. It’s time to begin taking down Christmas and getting on with Ordinary Time. But I am dragging my feet. I enjoyed it, and now I’m clinging to it. I’d like to keep it a few more days – maybe forever. Not the flu I caught over Christmas despite the flu shot in October. But the rest.

The baking, the hostessing, the linen changing for guests, the grandchildren — yes, those little faces!

I enjoyed my daughter’s break from school – and those four extra snow days which kept her home until today.

But the season is ending. And there are things I have abandoned. Things I’m avoiding.

I’d like to stay inside. To keep the resting & lounging going. Hide here a bit longer, like the agorophobe I could so easily become. The reclusive writer – without the dedicated writing routine.

I want to freelance life. Keep what’s easy.

Even grocery runs seem too much. And dog grooming. And that dental appointment I should schedule.

Lord, help me to leave the comfort of this house, to travel to Egypt with the Holy Family – though I’d like to stay in Bethlehem & wait to see who else might drop in.

Let the world come to me.

But that isn’t how it works.

Ordinary days are going out days. Routines that fill up. Errands to be run. More people. More places. More work.

So give me that dreamy mandate to go, like you once did to St. Joseph.

Because what seems safe – it’s not good for me. Egypt awaits.

Bethlehem on another day.