spark

Christmas is over.  Except for a few lone homes (like mine), most of the decorations and lights have been packed back into the attic, and winter stretches out ahead of us, dreary and white with cold.

I offer you a trip back a few weeks in time, back to the magic of giving, of a Gift, of people performing just for the joy of it, and for how the joy leaps and spreads like flames on dry grass.

Flash mobs.

So perfectly they portray Christmas:  people living in darkness, not even knowing it, not knowing to long for light, suddenly pierced by joy, by the Light dawning indiscriminately on the undeserving.  Beauty, unexpectedly, in the middle of a street, a store, a weekday's errands.  A Savior, in a stable.

Open your eyes to the wonder of the giving...

... and receive!


La Traviata in a Valencia market ...

... opera in a Melbourne open air market ...

The Hallelujah Chorus in a food court ...

... haunting music on a Basque metro ...

Carol medley in another food court (one of my favorites - watch for the awed little boy!) ...

Song and dance at a German train station, complete with ticker tape!

... and Ode to Joy in Spain, the best of the best of the flash mobs.


All those people, surprised by joy - did you see their faces?  Hungry, incredulous - "for me? here?!"  Absorbing beauty like an withered sponge, plunged again into healing water.  And the joy of giving joy must be as nourishing as the receiving - flash mobs are a glorious epidemic.  Youtube.com offers hundreds, from a South African town square to a railway station in Helsinki, from a Thai airport to the tourist streets of Charleston, from Hong Kong to Copenhagen, Vienna to Glasglow ...

And the beauty of it is, we're all made with a gift to give.  We all can give joy like that.  Each of us is created with some spark of life that the world needs.

So shine!  Give what you've got - maybe not music, or not opera, or not dance, but you can start with a smile or a hug.  And then listen - to God, to those who know you best - and find the spark you were born with ...

... and go light a fire.