by Laurie Klein
Dear friends, we are between Noels, past and pending. This year, I’m learning about creatures that might have shared that long-ago Holy Night. Welcome to “Oasis: Between Noels, Part II.”
Errands . . . gatherings . . . holiday lists . . . To misquote Hamlet, To do or not to do, that is the question.”
Dare I multitask, count hurry a virtue, knowing the word “haste” once meant “violence”?
A slower pace might invoke peace. Consider the camel. Measured, intentional steps plod across shifting dunes, thus prevent the body from sinking.
When I married Dreamer, unresolved sorrows often buried me. “Tell me a story,” I said one day, desperate for a distraction. Enter “Luigi the Camel.” Dreamer launched what would become a tradition. Kidnapped one day, hapless Luigi headlined the visiting circus. On another rainy day, Luigi gate-crashed the school Christmas pageant.
To this day, I cannot spell the sounds that camel makes! If laughter is medicine, Luigi reliably shoos off my blues.
A camel instinctively knows how to cope. Escalating heat? No worries; fur reflects light. Plus, the animal’s remarkable countercurrent blood flow cools body as well as brain.
Fatty tissue stored in the hump can be metabolized into water as well as energy. Ingenious nostrils cradle precious expelled vapor, reabsorb it for later use.
Might these conserving actions relate to treasuring the Word in one’s heart? So many words already fill my holiday lists. Better to store God’s Word within.
I need an oasis. A daydream. A side-trip, real or not.
I could follow Luigi into Macy’s. Or take a backyard mosey, shoeless, like Moses, padding into the realm of stillness where an eloquent bush might, for a moment, blaze, as if it knows my name.
“So much depends on the light,” Margaret Atwood says, “and the way you squint.”
Give me prayer, practical as a camel’s translucent third eyelid: moving back and forth, sweeping away debris; clearing vision, for close-ups and vistas.
Did you know the Arabic word for camel means “beauty”?
May we step lovely toward the unknown . . .
Scout each day’s waiting oasis.
Sip and Savor.
Store up goodness.
Will you join me?
For starters, here’s a walking prayer I’m using these days. In waltz time, hold each line in your mind, or speak or sing it aloud, with each inhale and exhale.
I am yours,
chosen and known;
evermore,
yours alone.
Even now,
breath and bone,
Holy Noel,
sing me home.
“To do, or not to do.” In what ways will you refresh others this season?
P.S. In Kenya, The Camel Library carries books to far-flung folks, thirsting for stories, poetry, knowledge
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash