The day after Christmas. Perhaps some space, some breathing room. As the church calendar reminds, Christmas is more than a day; it’s a season, a time between now and Epiphany, as well as an eternal time of new birth, new beginnings.

I heard one Christmas cry of the soul I want to pass on. This was a few days before the 25th, and a dear friend hollered: "I can’t do ANY MORE transactions!" She did not mean she could no longer shop for anything; she meant she needed quiet time, solitude, a pause in the transactions of gatherings, conversations, bustling…of other people. She needed to be alone.

Sound familiar? Churlish? Seasonally weird -- or weirdly seasonally appropriate? So much happens in such a short period of time at Christmas, often with travel thrown in. We sing the hymn: “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is giv’n” with anything but silence on our hearts or in our lives.

My friend, in wanting to take a time out, was moving into her own space…space to breathe, to rest, to perhaps hear the stirrings of the season that need to come in quiet time. In other words, virgin space.

According to Kathleen Norris in the book “Amazing Grace,” Thomas Merton describes the “virgin point” he tries to reach in contemplative prayer as something at the center of his being…as a “point untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth… which belongs entirely to God…”

Just as Jesus modeled the balance and alternation of being with, loving and healing people with time apart to pray, we also need to “transact” with all the blessed folk in our lives…and withdraw to and in time that is ours and God’s alone.

As this quiet week begins, may you have time to both speak (or holler) what your soul needs, and time to respond to what you hear.