More Than Good King Wenceslas

It’s a quiet Saturday morning just six days before Christmas.  Thankfully, no Zoom meetings are planned today.  The sun rays are making their way through the trees in the back yard and entering the kitchen windows on a horizontal trajectory.  From another room I can hear Bing Crosby singing Good King Wenceslas.

I never met Bing or the King, whom I later found out was just a Duke, but, after decades of hearing the song, I thought I should get the back story. I apologize for those of you who are scholars in this area.  Others of you, I’m sure, can’t wait to read this.

The Christmas Carol relates the story of a king from what is now present-day Czech Republic, going on a journey and enduring severe winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Saint Stephen.  It is based on the life of the 10th century Saint Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia. There’s more, but that should be enough…or, as much as you can endure.

A still, quiet winter morning during pandemic with so many of us alone, or with one or two others, can heighten the separation we’re all feeling.  Paradoxically, it can also do the opposite – letting us know on a deep, if intuitive, level that we are all connected with each other and with all of life (Life). “ God is speaking the Divine heart in every single living thing..” (Thomas Merton)

Without disparaging Good King Wenceslaus, this realization of the relational nature of everything, seems like a better thought for the Christmas season, for Incarnation and God among us. 

Merry Christmas Everyone Feliz / Navidad a todos/as