Thoughts of Christmas Past

It takes people here a bit longer to "get over" Christmas than is so often the case in America. In fact, the parties and round of visits go on until mid-January, and although businesses will be getting back to something of a normal work schedule tomorrow (that's right...Dec. 26 is also a holiday here--every year---and almost all shops are still closed on the 27th), it will take a couple of weeks of January for life to settle back down to a routine.

But routine is all what life in prison is about, I suppose. The idea behind prison is that certain people didn't know how to control their individual impulses and creative powers, using them in illegal ways, so they are now restricted in the use of those individual choices.

As an example, take the furniture in the dining room where I meet with the prisoners each week. I think it would be a source of frustration to Abbie if she were there all the time (not implying that it would be the major source of irritation to her if she were a prisoner, of course, as there are plenty of other disadvantages to being locked up). You see, every so often, Abbie's creative impulse gets the better of her, and she has an irrepressible urge to rearrange the furniture. Part of that is for thorough cleaning projects, but just as important to her is the redecoration of the living room or dining room. The room I meet in every week would not be conducive to her artistic touch. The ten tables and forty-plus chairs are made of cold, cheap aluminum, to start with. And they're all bolted to the floor. Keeps the furniture from being used as a weapon, I guess, in the event a food fight gets out of hand. I've spent so much time waiting in that room for the prisoners to be brought in over the past 6 years that I decided to sketch one of the sets of tables and chairs last week. I didn't have a sketch pad with me, so I tore a corner off a paper table covering.


On the other hand, the most significant Christmas card I got this year was a handmade card from Stefanie at the prison. She cut colored paper from a magazine, glued a blank sheet of paper on the inside and decorated it with colored pens on the outside and a poem on the inside, with the words, "Thank you for giving us a little of your time." When she gave it to me, she said by way of explanation to me and the other women there, "Well, I had the time..." In truth, "time" is the key word. She's in her early 20's and has about 6 years to go on a 9-yr. sentence.

In the church we had the Christmas cantata on the 18th, and a Christmas Eve service with a variety of hymns and carols on Christmas Eve. Through it all, Abbie and I have been battling head colds and coughs. This is the second or third bout with the same problem over the past two months. But we are blessed, all the same. We had a chance to speak with the kids and grandkids in the States, even using a web cam, so we got to see them, and they us.

While Christmas, as a day, has gone for this year, Christ has not. While no one of us knows for sure what 2006 will bring, we are certain that walking with Christ throughout the year will be an unspeakably great experience of learning more about the unsearchable riches of His grace.