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The Tate Unveils The Alternative Christmas Tree
LONDON - DECEMBER 3: A woman looks at Tate Britain's Christmas tree dressed by sculptor Richard Wentworth on December 3, 2004 in London, England. The traditional Norwegian Spruce tree is decorated with broken halves of plates and strings of dimmed domestic light bulbs also text panels on the base of the tree describe the histories of the tree's four elements: the light bulb, the plate, the Christmas tree and the plinth.
There is so much preparation, anticipation and excitement in the days just before Christmas. Even adults become giddy with moments of child-like joy and frivolity, at least I know I do. I feel its effects in the holiday songs I find myself humming, in the flutter of joy in my heart, and in the smile plastered across my face as I sat down to share Christmas Eve dinner with this years entourage. I had been touched and filled with a healthy dose of the Christmas spirit. The faces around my table may change and grow older, but the feeling of that night is reliably giddy and contentedly silly. For me, it's moments like this that I feel very, very alive.
One of my favorite gifts receive this holiday season was a previously unreleased, but first novel of one of my all time favorite authors, Madeline L'Engle; it's called "The Joys of Love. This book was Ms. L'Engle's first novel, but went unreleased until 2008 by the prompting of her granddaughters. Up to this publication, her grand daughters were the only ones that had read this coming-of-age, placed in 1946 summer theater, about a young girl and her first loves. It's a lovely book that I've just begun, but the quote that follows speaks to the contrast of our Monday examen. Take a moment to read this short excerpt as you ponder the question,
"Where this week did I feel the least and the most alive?"
Excerpt from "The Joys of Love, by Madeline L'Engle
"I've always thought about the theater like a Christmas tree, all shining and bright with beautiful ornaments. But now it seems like a Christmas tree with the tinsel all tarnished and the colored balls all fallen off and broken. That's a corny way of saying it, but you know what I mean."
"Sure, I know what you mean, Liz. And it's both ways...Some of the ornaments fall and break and some stays shining and beautiful like the nights before Christmas. Nothing's ever all one way. You know that. It's all mixed up and you've got to find the part that's right for you."
There are times all we see and feel is shimmer and light, and times that all we experience comes across as shabby and worn-out. Just like my Christmas Eve dinner, in addition to my giddy mood and happiness there were dishes to do as the dishwasher decided to go on the fritz, and thankfully guests that chipped in on the clean up. Truth is we have the light and the shabby mixed together and that is what makes our lives experiences authentic and sincere.
What was your experience this week of Christmas? What was whole and what was broken?
Maybe in sharing our bread with each other we can find beauty even in the broken parts, just like the Tate tree,and Madeline's finally published first-novel.
Comments
It's all a part of the beauty of living, eh?
Beautifully shared bread, as always, ma'am.
Thank you.