What is it about the Christmas season that so grips us? Despite our Grinch-like protests about cost and the razzmatazz starting earlier each year, we find ourselves drawn in ‘hook, line, and sinker’ every time!
Perhaps one of the reasons is that Christmas has that unerring ability to transport us back in time, providing fond memories of our lives before they became complex, tense, or humdrum. Christmas brings out the child in us.
The cynic within is given a few weeks’ break. We are set free to dream dreams of a world where peace might be known, real joy a possibility, even heaven a reality. The reason for this inward glimmer of hope – fleeting as it might be – is that ‘God has set eternity in the human heart’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Strange longing
Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is an emotional roller coaster ride that many of us have experienced over the years, either through book, film, or musical. We love to gasp at the grace and kindness shown to the thief Jean Valjean, or weep at the heroic last stand in the barricade scene.
