Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations that force thinking and response. This Sunday, after our previous weekly December excursions with Decoration, Anticipation and Admiration, we target: Contemplation.
Tragedy and triumph create contemplative conditions (or should, especially the latter) and Christmas with all the beauty, bustle and belief brings moments of reflection and requests. So it is that The Third Degree responds this Christmas.
“The Other Christmas”, mentally composed and tapped through walls as Christmas offering those long ago POW days and months and years is, per request, the offering this Christmas eve and day.
T’was the night before Christmas, and out at alert,
Not a creature was stirring, the TV inert,
Pilots and crew chiefs in bunk rooms asleep.
Toss fitful awaiting the klaxon to leap,
And off in the corner, a darkened green tree,
It’s Christmas again in the land of the free.
T’was the night before Christmas, out over the pond
Where a Starlifter strains for far Europe beyond,
The drone of its engines an old carol say,
Ramstein tomorrow, mid-east the next day,
Its instrument panel dull red all aglow,
Back home at McGuire , it’s starting to snow.
T’was the night before Christmas, so far out at sea,
Be it cruiser, destroyer or plane packed CV,
Up forward the lookout marks tolling of bell,
No church steeples here, just salt spray and ground swell,
And on watch from the bridge, OOD doth roam,
The Captain’s chair empty, both here and at home.
T’was the night before Christmas, up over the pole,
There’s a B52 on atomic patrol,
With peace their profession, its crew doth attend
Their fortress of strength to deter and defend,
Strange all electronics of this modern day,
Show nary a sign of old Santa and sleigh.
T’was the night before Christmas, a deployment call comes,
So goodbye little children who dream sugar plums,
Tomorrow they’ll wake, their young eyes all alight,
Then blink back the tears, Daddy’s left in the night.
Now far from the hearth where each stocking is hung,
Cross cold starlit skies a small aircraft is flung
T’was the night before Christmas down deep in the pad,
Stands a minuteman poised if the world should go mad,
Its cold chimney silo has no warming place,
Nor rooftop awaiting a swift coursers pace,
And what yuletide missal from crews waiting still,
Though strange it may seem, Peace on earth and good will.
— T’was the night before Christmas—-,
mud up to the knee,
There’s a lone foxhole dug by a young PFC
He’s only 18, Christmas eve seems to close,
But ready he stands to destroy unknown foes,
He’s scared but he’ll do the grim job that he must,
In him, have we placed, our defense and our trust.
T’was the night before Christmas—- ,
all over this earth,
There’s volunteers standing, no mistletoe mirth,
Coast Guard and Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines,
If asked, they can tell you how much Christmas means
You don’t know their names, waiting families and strife
But for you, if need be, each will give you their life….
T’was the night before Christmas,…
and then,– Christmas Day
And maybe you’ll think about those far away,
And just maybe, take off, a moment or two,
Say a short prayer for them, the whole family and you,
Small price indeed for your bright–evergreen tree,
It’s Christmas again, in the land of the free.
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The answers and actions remain yours.
May you, like contemplative Albert Camus, find in the cold of winter, within, invincible summer.
Happy Christmas to all.