SNAP! The crack of bone was loud enough to startle the cat lurking underneath the kitchen table. I looked from the hand of my wife to the hand of my son, each of which grasped the stub end of one side of the wishbone - the one that had been carefully preserved from the prior week's Thanksgiving turkey carcass. For the ensuing couple of weeks this hunk of osseous matter had been held in abeyance on the kitchen windowsill, drying and preparing for it's ultimate task of bestowing a wish upon the bearer of it's larger side. But in that moment, as the cat scuttled away in alarm, it was hard to tell who would receive the comfort of knowing that their wish would be granted. For a second or two it remained an uncertainty as to who held the coveted larger side. A curious circumstance had occurred.
According to Wikipedia the proper name for the wishbone is the furcula (latin for "little fork"). It is, in birds, the bone which, by evolution and in order that flight might be achieved, results when the clavicles (collar-bones to you and me) have fused. I don't know if the sides and middle part of the bone have respective names (because Wikipedia doesn't provide those details, and I really don't want to spend more time researching such technicalities), but those three "sections" are important as my story continues.
The confusion had been caused by the situation that, in fact, both sides - clavicles - of the wishbone had broken. This, of course, is not supposed to happen. Usually the wishbone breaks on one side or the other and one person is left holding a larger piece of the bone. But upon further inspection of the bone fragments, my son (barely) held the larger side. While, strangely, both sides had broken, the center piece remained connected to Jacob's side by a thread of some kind of tissue. Perhaps it was a remaining piece of ligament or just a strand of tough muscle that had refused to let go during the carving process and had hardened along with it's adjoined skeletal structure. Either way, it became in that moment of wish making and bone snapping, the cord that held fast to to a vestige of hope. Jacob exclaimed with delight, "My wish held on by a sinew!"
We laughed and inspected the broken pieces of bone with mixed and fleeting interest. The cat recovered (and acted as if he had meant to scurry off at the sound of the snap), and eventually we tossed the used up symbol of hope and desire in the trash. I never did ask what Jacob had wished for.
But I got to thinking about that silly little ritual and its curious outcome in this particular circumstance over the past few days. It is in these waning days of December when we finally come to realize that Christmas will unfurl itself around us again this year. Like a blanket wrapped around the shoulders on a cold winter's night, Christmas will warm us for a time and then we will move on. Eventually the shopping will be done, the cookies all baked, the feasts prepared, the guests hosted, the carols sung, the church bells rung, the presents opened and the jolly old elf will safely return to his workshop in the North. The decorations and lighted electrical strands will, before long, be boxed away, stockings will be stowed, and numerous trees will be either discarded on the curb, chipped into mulch, or disassembled and packed up in a crate. The soft Christmas blanket that once warmed our shoulders will be folded and placed upon a shelf until the chill wind returns.
And what of the hope and desire of Christmas? What of the proclamation of peace on Earth and goodwill to all? The blessing of gathered family and friends, of promises to remain close in heart throughout the year...will they prosper or will they, like the needles on the tree, fade and fall? Will the fissure wrought in time and space as God breaks into history continue to gush goodness and unending joy even after the angels depart? Or will the hum-drum shepherd's life be ours, too, when the sun rises once more?
There is a falseness about Christmas...a falseness not unlike the wish made while stretching the fused clavicles of a furcula to it's breaking point. One doesn't really expect for the wish made with a wishbone to come true. And the world will still have its same troubles and evils on December 26th and into the new year. Indeed, such is a common critique of religion and its festivals - nothing good has ever come from it, and nothing ever will.
Still, and perhaps foolishly, though, some of us hope. And it is ever apparent that our hope hangs as precariously as the larger half of a wishbone which has curiously broken abnormally. We hold on to hope if even by a sinew. A sinew as fragile as the tiny cords of flesh that held bone together with bone inside the skin of a babe, born, and laid in a manger. For if there is any wisdom and understanding that is poured out of our celebration of Christmas it is that our hope in God is as fragile as human flesh. Perhaps that is why God chose to enter the world as flesh instead of, say, a rock, or a glacier, or a tsunami. Flesh breaks and tears and bleeds. But when we are broken, and when our bones are stretched to their breaking point, it is the flesh of God that holds us together and binds us to that for which we hope.
According to Wikipedia the proper name for the wishbone is the furcula (latin for "little fork"). It is, in birds, the bone which, by evolution and in order that flight might be achieved, results when the clavicles (collar-bones to you and me) have fused. I don't know if the sides and middle part of the bone have respective names (because Wikipedia doesn't provide those details, and I really don't want to spend more time researching such technicalities), but those three "sections" are important as my story continues.The confusion had been caused by the situation that, in fact, both sides - clavicles - of the wishbone had broken. This, of course, is not supposed to happen. Usually the wishbone breaks on one side or the other and one person is left holding a larger piece of the bone. But upon further inspection of the bone fragments, my son (barely) held the larger side. While, strangely, both sides had broken, the center piece remained connected to Jacob's side by a thread of some kind of tissue. Perhaps it was a remaining piece of ligament or just a strand of tough muscle that had refused to let go during the carving process and had hardened along with it's adjoined skeletal structure. Either way, it became in that moment of wish making and bone snapping, the cord that held fast to to a vestige of hope. Jacob exclaimed with delight, "My wish held on by a sinew!"We laughed and inspected the broken pieces of bone with mixed and fleeting interest. The cat recovered (and acted as if he had meant to scurry off at the sound of the snap), and eventually we tossed the used up symbol of hope and desire in the trash. I never did ask what Jacob had wished for.
But I got to thinking about that silly little ritual and its curious outcome in this particular circumstance over the past few days. It is in these waning days of December when we finally come to realize that Christmas will unfurl itself around us again this year. Like a blanket wrapped around the shoulders on a cold winter's night, Christmas will warm us for a time and then we will move on. Eventually the shopping will be done, the cookies all baked, the feasts prepared, the guests hosted, the carols sung, the church bells rung, the presents opened and the jolly old elf will safely return to his workshop in the North. The decorations and lighted electrical strands will, before long, be boxed away, stockings will be stowed, and numerous trees will be either discarded on the curb, chipped into mulch, or disassembled and packed up in a crate. The soft Christmas blanket that once warmed our shoulders will be folded and placed upon a shelf until the chill wind returns.
And what of the hope and desire of Christmas? What of the proclamation of peace on Earth and goodwill to all? The blessing of gathered family and friends, of promises to remain close in heart throughout the year...will they prosper or will they, like the needles on the tree, fade and fall? Will the fissure wrought in time and space as God breaks into history continue to gush goodness and unending joy even after the angels depart? Or will the hum-drum shepherd's life be ours, too, when the sun rises once more?
There is a falseness about Christmas...a falseness not unlike the wish made while stretching the fused clavicles of a furcula to it's breaking point. One doesn't really expect for the wish made with a wishbone to come true. And the world will still have its same troubles and evils on December 26th and into the new year. Indeed, such is a common critique of religion and its festivals - nothing good has ever come from it, and nothing ever will.
Still, and perhaps foolishly, though, some of us hope. And it is ever apparent that our hope hangs as precariously as the larger half of a wishbone which has curiously broken abnormally. We hold on to hope if even by a sinew. A sinew as fragile as the tiny cords of flesh that held bone together with bone inside the skin of a babe, born, and laid in a manger. For if there is any wisdom and understanding that is poured out of our celebration of Christmas it is that our hope in God is as fragile as human flesh. Perhaps that is why God chose to enter the world as flesh instead of, say, a rock, or a glacier, or a tsunami. Flesh breaks and tears and bleeds. But when we are broken, and when our bones are stretched to their breaking point, it is the flesh of God that holds us together and binds us to that for which we hope.
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