Hope Christmas

I had a friend in college who seemed to collect men like little kids collect baseball cards. Most weren't the sort she wanted but now and again, she found a good one and kept him for a while. 

The particular man I'm thinking of in her circle was sad and struggling. Being 19 at the time, I couldn't think of much I could do to help him. I was pretty much of a mess myself then, too.

One scene that sticks in my mind happened in February, when it seems like winter is never going to end. I think I was telling him I was really depressed and he said he felt the same. At one point, he said, "I don't know what happened. Christmas was so hopeful, and then everything fell apart."

When he said that, I wanted to cry--and would have if I hadn't walked away to look out the window. He was right though--there IS something so hopeful about Christmas. Of course there is the celebration of he birth of Jesus and Christianity. At the same time, I think Christmas is also hopeful for those who aren't Christian, just because people are so happy and making an effort to live Jesus' words and to be kind.

That effort seems to flatten out in January and doesn't revive very easily. It flattens for people who are pinning their hopes on something--whether it's a job or a relationship or a baby or all of the above. This man I knew was lost; I knew that because I was also lost. I had a feeling I'd be struggling my whole life unless I found some way to deal with the hopelessness around me.

I think I found it in writing, which gave me a way in to understand more about the people I know and myself too. I have no idea what happened to the man I mentioned here though, because I left the neighborhood in my junior year of college and moved to another one.

But I've been thinking about him lately, as the year has been so dark and so much harder than any one of us wanted it to be. And it occurs to me that Christmas isn't so much about hope; it's about the reason for it. Isn't that why so many people want trees, especially the evergreens at this time of year? I think the Russians have a word -- nadya -- that means the beginning of hope. Maybe that's the best part. 

And wherever this man may be-- and I have no idea where that is--I want him to be hopeful again. 

Because hope isn't just one thing. 

It's everything.

Merry Christmas.