The long shadow of the season

Well, that’s it for another year.  

When the tree in the corner of the living room looks more like the sole survivor of a nuclear winter than a winter wonderland, then we tend to know it’s time to call it a day, pack up what’s left of the lights and twinkling ornaments, and return to our work-a-day lives. 

We’ve travelled, eaten, played, laughed, argued sometimes.

We’ve opened, bought, given, smiled, perhaps even cried.

But has any of this festive cheer changed us for the better?  Are we in any way different because of the story of Christmas that we have, in one way or another, re-enacted?

I’m not particularly speaking of faith here, although clearly this is where the story began.  I’m simply wondering whether, as the dark days of winter begin to take their toll (at least for those of us living ‘above the line’), the light that grew with all these ‘good times’ will be strong enough to last the onset of yet-again-ordinary life.

Or perhaps we’re accustomed to letting it fade away slowly – faith, hope and charity eroded by the winds of anxiety that accompany the stresses and strains of modern family life.

Looking back with the hindsight that January tends to bring, I notice that most of us head into the New Year firmly resolved to do less than what we did back in December. 

Eat less, drink less, make less mess. 

Could it be, though, that is where I tend to go wrong?  Are we too quick to extinguish the long shadow of the season and settle back into something less than real life?

American writer and broadcaster, Andy Rooney, died just before Christmas, only a few weeks ago.  “One of the most glorious messes in the world,” he once is reported to have said, “is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.”

Don’t clean it up too quickly. 

The tree in our home is gone.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not at all sad about that. 

And yet, this year, I’m determined not to forget too quickly those few days of seasonal cheer, surrounded by those I most love in the world.   I’m determined not to forget the feasting, lounging, playing, and long half-meaningful conversations that end deep into the night.

That is my resolution.

After all, these are the moments that my children will remember.  The rest is nothing but white noise.

What's the story we are writing for ourselves?

Let’s start with an idea that is not my own.

Fascinated by the prospect of apocalypse, Douglas Coupland, in his latest book Player One (2010), grapples with the big idea that the human story will end as the earth’s supply of oil begins to run out. 

That said, the story starts far more innocuously than that and is much more a book about the lives of four ordinary individuals who happen to converge in a Toronto airport hotel bar.

In short, each of these individuals is lost. 

There is the barman, recovering alcoholic Rick, and three customers: Luke, a pastor who has stolen $20,000 from his church; Rachel, a beautiful 17-year-old who seems like an automaton; and Karen, a 40-year-old divorcee meeting a man she contacted online.

Each of these individuals, it transpires, used to have a more meaningful story to tell, something to live for and something they believed in.  But somehow the thread of their lives has unraveled.  They have, each in their own way, literally 'lost the plot' of their lives and ended up in some third-rate, soul-less, airport hotel bar.

Standing back and reflecting on the challenge of modern human existence, Coupland himself sums it up:

“Our curse as humans is that we are trapped in time; our curse is that we are forced to interpret life as a sequence of events – a story – and when we can’t figure out what our particular story is, we feel lost somehow.”

This is personally challenging stuff.

What’s the story that I am writing for myself?  Has the thread of meaning already started to unravel?  Do I even know how the pieces fit together these days?  Will I end up as another player in the airport hotel lounge?

Another author I’ve been reading recently, Donald Miller, tackles the same issue from a different angle.  In his book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (2009), his introduction sums it up perfectly:

“If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers.  You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen.  The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful.  The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

Two books and two similar ideas that I can’t begin to claim as my own.

However, it’s still January, so I’m guessing that there is still time to sign up on the resolutions list for 2011.  You see, I absolutely can't afford to be the guy who ends up in an airport hotel lounge or spends his life dreaming of owning a Volvo.  None of us can.  There is so much more life to be lived; so many more interesting stories to tell; so much more meaning to be uncovered.

I’m determined to write a future for myself that someone will want to remember.

What about you?