Christmas Tales in Three Part Harmony
I.
One Christmas, years ago, my husband and daughter had gone to Maryland to visit his family, while I stayed back home to be with our house. Having my parents nearby meant I wasn’t totally alone. But, this somewhat solitary way of spending Christmas developed after several disastrous attempts to leave our aging farmhouse with house sitters. Once we came back to frozen pipes and water running over the kitchen floor and down the hot air vents. Another time the blower motor to the wood furnace broke. Fortunately the house sitter was smart enough to get help or we might have lost the house. Need I say more?
It was Christmas Eve. I drove to town to share in the Christmas Eve service. The weather was pleasantly wintry, the music delightful, my frame of mind, dreadful. The Christmas Eve Service didn’t relieve my sense of self-pity; being surrounded by convivial clusters of people exchanging boisterous holiday greetings did nothing to diminish my feelings of aloneness and isolation. Oh, poor me!!!
Recently my husband had been running an athletic program for the local mental health agency, so I had gotten to know many of the mental health clients. Also, at that time, I was coordinating a church sponsored Community Meal. Knowing that many of the men my husband coached lived solitary lives, I invited them to join the Community Meals. Several became frequent guests and I got to know them The mental health clients ran a drop in center, and knowing the place would be open and busy on Christmas Eve, I decided to go visit-not out of kindness or charity, but because I was feeling sorry for myself. I knew I would be welcomed if I went there.
And, indeed, I was. Entering the smoke filled room with scattered Christmas decorations I was warmly greeted by the folks sitting around. We sat and visited, chatted idly about this and that. I remember neither the conversation nor the amount of time I spent there. What I do remember is that my self-pity disappeared and my perspective changed dramatically. Kindness, delight, and genuine welcome surrounded me. Convivality ruled; it was an enjoyable way to spend a solitary Christmas Eve.
I was ashamed; I felt deceptive, false:their well-being had nothing to do with my presence. My own needs had driven me to visit the drop in center, but they didn’t know that. I was mortified by my self pity; I was humbled by their kindness. When finally I left, I left with the best Christmas present I could have been given: kindness, welcome, friendship.
II
If indeed, we believe not just in words, but in deed and spirit that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” perhaps there would be less fuss about whether or not this group or party or agency or organization is trying to drive Christmas out of our culture. ( remember; our Puritan forebears forbade any celebration of Christmas; in fact, anything perceived as ‘celebration’ could be punished!) As an undergraduate in a city university I said “Merry Christmas,” to my Christian friends, “Happy Hanukah,” to my Jewish friends, and “Happy Holidays,” to people whose religious inclinations I didn’t know. It never was much of a big deal.
Christmas has become what we have allowed it to become. It is both a secular holiday and a religious holiday. Indeed, it is the only essentially religious holiday that is also a federal holiday. There is nothing from stopping any of us celebrating it in a way reflects its essential meaning, which is to honor the birth of Jesus.
Away with photos of dogs wearing Santa hats; away with maudlin cards oozing saccharine spirituality; away with cards that are so vague in their message they say nothing. Let’s go back to the beginning. If we go back to the Gospel according to St. Luke and read therein the infancy story of Jesus, if we begin with the story of the birth of John the Baptist, we can re-discover the holiday for what it could or should be, rather than what commerce has made it into.
A few days ago I heard a very young Michael Jackson singing in his high, reedy voice, “where there is love, I’ll be there...”
“That could almost be a hymn ,” I observed to my husband.
A much older song, a traditional Christmas carol based on a poem by Christina Rossetti reminds us ”Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine...”
Luke’s narrative speaks to the amazing power of God’s love. It speaks of the power of wonder and trust; it evokes mystery and delight; it shows us
the goodness that can prevail when we allow the Spirit of God, rather than the spirit of commerce, or habit or annoyance or fear to pervade our lives. But most of all it reminds us that God so loved the world; and that we, in turn, need to love the world as we have been loved. And that love is manifests itself not when we attempt to denigrate or dominate or overpower others’ beliefs, but when our witness to our faith is so powerful, that others, like the disciple Phillip, will say, “Come and see.”
Don’t we all, who celebrate Christmas as a religious holy day, remember the sense of wonder we had as small children, beholding the tree, the presents, the baby in the manger? Don’t we all remember that sense of the possible; that profound feeling that because of this moment in time, this inbreaking of God’s love in the world, all good is possible? Can we capture again that ineffable feeling of peace and well-being? And, then, can we take that spirit of God’s love out into the highways and byways of our world, not to confront but to heal; not to propagandize but to bear witness? Can we, who believe in the life and message of Jesus remember what was said, supposedly by Francis of Assisi, that we should always preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words?
III.
On my first service trip to Central America I travelled with a medical team to the mountains of Honduras where we would hold medical clinics. I was the pharmacist; I would dole out both medicines and the directions for taking them to each person who came through the endless line. We had brought Christmas cards with us to distribute to the people coming to use the services of the clinic. I had a stack of cards, ready and waiting for distribution.
One attendees was very tall lady holding the hand of handsome little black haired boy with enormous black eyes. I could not imagine what effort it took for her to travel out of the hills, from what I knew was a tiny house with neither water nor electricity and be so neat, and clean, and gracious in appearance and demeanor.
They waited patiently in line for their turn to visit the doctor and then came to me for their medicines. After I had dispensed their pills, I extracted what I thought was a lovely picture of a Christmas tree and handed it smilingly to the little boy. He looked at the picture thoughtfully. He tipped his head up and whispered someting to his mother. She bent to listen and whispered back to him.
Somewhat shyly he proffered the card back to me and said: “Una tarjeta del nino Jesus.” A card of the infant Jesus.
I extracted one from my stack and handed it to him, exchanging the glistening picture of the well adorned tree for a picture of a small child in a manger of hay.
Even now, in my mind’s eye, I can see them standing there, the tall woman elegant in her worn clothes; the tiny boy, holding her hand, his head turned up toward her. Even now, I re-experience that moment of awakening: how the little boy bore witness to faith when all the circumstances of his life might have told him otherwise; how, in his innocence he shared his simple love and delight in ‘el nino Jesus’. That little boy holds the Christ Child in his heart. He reminds us: isn’t about whether we say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or Season’s Greetings; it isn’t about the decorations, the gifts, the food, it’s about that moment in time when God’s love broke through in the presence of a baby, and history changed forever. And that little boy knew it.
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