...where is the tender spot?

"Where is the tender spot?" The doctor poked and prodded for the location of the discomfort. The discomfort, the tenderness, would, of course, be an indicator of injury. Healers probe for tenderness to help guide them to the source of the hurt.

There is at least one more sort of tenderness. This would be the care and gentleness with which we treat something, or someone, we value or love very much. We may treat priceless artwork, or newborn babies, tenderly.

I have been pondering, as I've talked to friends, and scrolled through my media, and reflected on my own life, that the Advent and Christmas seasons evoke tenderness, of both sorts, in an awful lot of us.

With the wonder of children, we unwrap ornaments and remember the stories that go with them. We bake---from scratch!--sweets and savories to share (and a few to keep for ourselves, maybe...). We envision the perfect gift for each loved one, the glow of happiness on each face when boxes are opened on the just-right Christmas morning. We pose our families for the everybody-smile pic for which (almost) everyone took your suggestion about wearing white tops, and it looks great. We tuck our own little ones into bed, or get misty-eyed smiling at someone else's little shepherds in the Christmas Eve pageant. There is so much tenderness here.

But if we're honest, for a lot of us, that's not the whole story. There is tenderness in this season that emanates from the source of hurt. Something about the season causes the backward gaze, and it is a time when those who have lost dear family and friends feel those losses in a deep and tender way, whether the loss is new or decades old. Circumstances change, and what is lost is noticed and mourned at the holidays. Health and wellness, always taken for granted, can slip away, and we note the holiday traditions that will be different. Strained relationships that are ignored during the rest of the year become painfully obvious during a season when the ideal holiday mood is one of togetherness and conviviality. Brokenness and alienation leave tender spots with no visible wounds.

In the midst of the lovely, tender times this holy season, there is also the tenderness that indicates pain. How can we celebrate the wonder of tenderness, and honor the tenderness of the shadows that is also part of the sacred everyday?

Where is the tender spot? I have mine...do you?