A feeling of calm spread over my whole body. This place has always had that effect. I settled in and sat there without removing my hat, scarf or gloves. As beautiful as it is and as warm as I felt on the inside, the temperature is always lower in the church because of its blue slate floor and stone walls that climb up to its high ceilings. As I sat in the same pew I normally did when I was growing up and attending regularly, image after image inundated me and everything began to glow.
Every Wednesday morning during the schoolyear, we had a service in this sanctuary. The Advent season during the month of December was the time we began practicing for the Christmas services. We always sang “Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel” to begin them. Week after week we witnessed more and more of the “Sewing Ladies” handiwork. From week to week we saw their progress unfold until every hallowed space, Altar to the Narthex, was magnificently dressed in red fabric and gold thread.
While the ladies worked diligently, the men did the heavy lifting of bringing in two tall Blue Spruces which they placed on both sides of the steps going to the altar. The first two weeks the trees remained bare. Their piney aroma permeated the air. They eventually draped them in blue lights. Maybe because one year my mother bought boxes and boxes of Christmas cards with that photo on it at the annual Christmas Sale, I can still see them to this day.
As I sit in quiet meditation, it all comes back to me unbeckoned, the hymns, the Nativity and the children reenacting the first Christmas in Bethlehem of Judea. I also recall the year I needed a Navy-blue skirt for the Christmas Eve service only to find out I didn’t have one. My Aunt Gretel worked on Steinway Street at “Tiny World” where they sold very fine clothing for children and tots. In a last-minute rush Mom and I dashed over there (luckily it was a block and a half from the Church).
I dreaded
trying on clothes in the dressing room and as usual I was squirming around in
the store as it was already getting a little darker outside. As we exited the store, Holiday music was
playing and angels with trumpets were high up the streetlamps heralding the
Newborn King. As we turned the corner of
31st Avenue the shoppers were purchasing trees from the guy who sold
them from that same spot year after year.
I was going to be late, again!
Just as I was fretting over my customary tardiness, I caught a glimpse
of tiny white flakes floating all around us.
Right this very minute I sing along to the refrain from some old tune
playing in my head, “No, you can’t take that away from me.”
Yvonne A.
Dec 2020
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