“Come on, let’s decorate the Christmas tree,” Maria Uwe demanded. Full of unrest and anticipation she had sat next to him, drinking the afternoon tea faster than usual, with less thought and more haste. Now she sat there, burning, that he would finally have taken the last sip to finally say these words
“Come on, let’s decorate a Christmas tree.”
“It’s good, always slow with the young horses,” said Uwe, laughing, because he was not indifferent to the enthusiasm that Mary displayed. Every day he discovered new facets of hers that he appreciated. So this irrepressible enthusiasm that he had not experienced before in this form. Again and again he thought, now she lets herself free and shows what she feels, but each time it was the approach. At the last moment, it was still possible to take her and her feelings to the rein and keep them in check. English countenance, which always kept her. As if it were a crime to be happy or sad. Just when he said, now she unlocks her tank, behind which she hides her feelings and leaves at least a little insight into her interior, she concluded again. It was no more than a hunch, and yet he did not give up, and now, when he saw her beaming, her eyes sparkling with joy and enthusiasm, he knew it was worth patience, with her, with their meeting, because now he was rewarded.
“What do we want to wait for?”, asked Maria, who wanted to be outside long ago.
“For example, I’ll get the saw,” Uwe replied, smiling as he finally got to his feet.
“Oh what, why a saw?”, Maria now said.
“Well, working with your nail file would mean that we will not have a Christmas tree in the house this year,” he said amused.
“Who said something from inside?”, Mary wondered, who said that everyone should understand that a tree belongs outdoors and not in a house, “No, we will decorate a tree outside, for us and for the animals, because Jesus was born in a stable, between ox and donkey. It is very unjust that they have nothing of the tree, nothing of the joy we share. Or not?”
“There’s something in it,” Uwe admitted, “but I do not think the animals outside are particularly interested in Christmas baubles or tinsel, probably not even chocolate.”
“Of course not,” Maria agreed, “Come on now, you’ll see.” With that, Maria took a box under her arm and pulled Uwe with her into the stable. There they took the big disc-chest and filled it with everything that could feed the animals and make their tree beautiful, with apples and small balls of grains, with carrots and hay. A few yards in front of the house stood a fir, which they chose for this purpose. She was standing so close to the house that she could be seen from the window, but far enough away that the animals would come out of the forest to accept the presents. This tree was just ideal. Around the tree they draped the hay and on the tree they hung the carrots and the apples and whatever else they had found delicious. Only recently did Maria open the box she had brought. To the light came straw stars and small wooden carved pendants. There was a manger and a star as well as a bell and other Christmas symbols. Lastly, Mary put on the top something that looked like a spiral and crowned the tree. Only then did she take a step back and examine her work.
“What do you say?” Maria turned to Uwe, after allowing herself a few moments of silent contemplation.
“I think it has become beautiful,” he said thoughtfully, “not because it was so extraordinarily decorated, but because it had to do with life itself, which he should symbolize.”
“And that starts with not killing the tree, but letting it live,” said Maria.
“By not being uprooted but keeping the picture. To feel one’s roots again, to understand, consolidate and maintain one’s home,” said Uwe.
“With the sure hold that allows one to grow and stretch, to discover, to experience, to be kept and protected,” continued Maria.
“Is Christmas seen as a wonderful symbol of the connection between different cultures and traditions, to a whole, without that something go down or one has to give way to the other?”, now asked Uwe.
“The fusion between Christian belief and Celtic mythology?”, asked Maria.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Uwe, “because Christianity came and brought the message of the birth of Christ. And the Celts had the symbol of the World Tree, the festival of the winter solstice. Instead of favoring one and eradicating the other, they sought and found a way to connect. The tree, grounded by the roots, raises the branches to heaven, facing the light and the sun, great and strong, sheltering and nourishing others. Is there a fairer picture of Christ who, as a man, came among men who did not shy away from earth and flesh, but rather slipped into their hull, to understand what it means to be human in all its brokenness. The tree that protects and nourishes and provides shelter that invites all who need it to come to it. Being human as ultimately connecting everything. You and me. Where nothing counts as being human in itself. As Jesus had no fear of contact. Lepers and outlaws, men and women, adults and children, animals and plants, all he assumed, indiscriminate. ”
“Not quite,” Maria corrected, “He turned with quite understandable rage against all who betrayed human-being, and with it life. Humanity and aliveness as the highest good. ”
“And on the night of the winter solstice, where the days are finally starting to get longer, where day by day there is more light and life awakens, always a little more,” said Uwe pensive, “Winter and cold and the darkness gradually withdraws more and more, so that the cycle of life, of becoming and of blossoming can begin anew. Actually, it is obvious to unite it.”
“However, one must want to see it,” said Maria, “Only those who want reconciliation, they will achieve, because he puts the connective over the divisive, adds what can be submit and does not let the inefficiency in the center. However, anyone who does not want reconciliation will always find something divisive that he can place in the center of his thinking in order to hide everything connected behind it. ”
“Ultimately, it’s just about wanting,” said Uwe, “But I do not know, is that really so, can that be true? Would not that be too easy? It cannot be that all the problems and differences would be so easy to solve? ”
“Why not?”, Maria asked logically.
“Because, if it were that easy, it would be a shame not to do it,” Uwe replied involuntarily.
“Only if you are concerned with something other than self-assertion, then it would be hard because you make it difficult for you,” said Maria simply, “It is the fear that you give yourself up if you tolerate that there is also something else that could well exist next to one’s own, if you are firmly rooted. ”
“Many are uprooted in the space of arbitrariness,” added Uwe. “Without support, without support, even the slightest breath of wind can blow you away.”
“But if you take your time and let your roots grow, you do not need to be afraid,” Maria said thoughtfully. “That would be my wish for the world on this Christmas night, that everyone has a place to grow their roots so that nobody has to be afraid any more, not in front of the stranger and the unknown, but open and curious to face it. ”
“Because getting to know something new does not mean having to lose something else,” said Uwe. “In the world there is enough room for every human being and his own self, actually.”
“And I found my place with you,” Maria added.
“And I mean mine with you,” Uwe and Maria embraced.
Magdalena looked through the window at the tree and the two young people and was delighted with the miracle of love that began to take root and intervene in the Web image of life. And it was the evening of the twentieth of Advent.