Eight years ago, i wrote a post titled the same as this post (https://jimjewell.com/a-pocket-of-resistance/lonely-things/). That earlier post was about the song; Rod McKuen, the poet whose most famous poem was “Stanyan Street;” and Glen Yarborough, the singer who recorded the last verse of the song under the title of “The Lonely Things.”

i sit in the family room/den/great room — why do we use different terms for the same thing — of my sister and brother-in-law’s home on Signal Mountain outside Chattanooga, a place we’ve spent Christmas almost every year since 1992. The lights on the wonderful Christmas tree which is roughly nine feet tall are not lit. The fire in the majestic fireplace has not yet been lit. Our daughter and her husband have left and are headed back to Las Vegas. My sister Martha and Maureen with a slight bit of help from Todd and me are feverishly preparing the Christmas dinner for twelve.

Then a much smaller group will go to the 11:00 p.m. church service where Martha will play the bells, and they will turn the lights out, the congregation will light individuals for all of us to sing “Silent Night.”

In this quiet before the gathering, i think about our soldiers, sailors, marines, and air men and women away from home during these holidays. They are experiencing lonely things.

i was lucky to have been away for Christmas only three times during my career. i have written about all three in previous posts and will not bore you with a repeat.

From those experiences, i can tell you that as hard as our commands try, as much frivolity and great food we might have, as much as we throw ourselves into Christmas far away from home, it is still a lonely thing.

Blessings to all of our military personnel who are not home. May they and all of you have a joyous Christmas remembering the reason for the season.