A Story From Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas and outside the house
The wind was a’howling (the lousy old louse).
Snowing at breakfast and snowing at lunch;
Deeper at dinner - Why snow so darn much?

I was house sitting, as warm as could be,
Inside a big house with two dogs and no tree.
But come Christmas Eve I sought to depart
To go the church and offer my art.
To play the piano was my one intent
Or else I don’t think I would ever have went.

(Note: The last word in the above sentence has been used for rhyming purposes only, and in no way condones the use of improper language in poetry.)

The drifts were knee deep, but in my borrowed car
Nothing did I fear as I pushed through the bar.
One moment in time (just one, and that’s all)
The four tires spun like a cat on a ball.
And then we were free! Free to take flight
Down the slick highway and into the night.

(Actually, we barely made it to thirty.)

The service was grand with the candles and songs.
I played every tune, and they all sang along.
And then I was off once again in the car
That wasn’t exactly my own by so far.

We got to the driveway and started to go.
Then - THUMP! - we were stuck, just like that, in the snow.
The night before Christmas! Oh, what could I do?
Well, what would you do if it happened to you?

I called the nice people whose car I twice drove.
I called them and said I was stuck in the snow.
They said, “Call the neighbor and see if he will
Come out in the snow and lend you his skill.”

So, I did what they said, and I called him right up.
He said he would come and get me unstuck.
But did he know how it was howling outside,
With temperatures plummeting so far and wide?

But come he had said, and he didn’t dodge
But brought out his chains for the car that was lodged.
Well, the chains didn’t work, so he started the tractor,
And I sat in the car, waiting until after

The driveway was cleared of a foot of cold snow.
And all the whole while, the wind sure did blow.
I wondered as I sat inside the warm car
How his fingers and toes were faring out thar.

(Note: During that last sentence, the author suffered a temporary lapse into a somewhat obscure accent that uses the pronunciation “thar” to mean “there.”)

And this is a story from Christmas this year,
A story of manifest holiday cheer.
While you with your family and me in my socks
Were cozying up for a movie and talks,

A man outside in the freezing cold air
Was ridding a rather poor driver from care.
No fussing about it, no stomping, no glare,
Just one simple, “Yes, I can help you out there.”

And this is the meaning of peace upon earth,
The reason the Christmas songs have any worth.
A simple, benevolent story to weave -
Like one long ago on the first Christmas Eve.

An Illegitimate Christmas

Well, it’s blizzarding outside (welcome to Nebraska!), there’s an angel in a red robe playing what I assume to be a first century version of the trumpet in the opposite corner of the room (It’s cardboard. The angel and the trumpet.), I haven’t drunk my cup of hot chocolate for the day, but it is feeling something like Christmas. Which is probably a sign of health and awareness, considering we’re less than 48 hours out from the Big Day.

Christmas. That time of year when girls know to expect aromatic gifts that they’re not quite sure if they’re supposed to wash with or eat (With flavors like Vanilla Hazelnut and Coconut Cream, who would have ever thought it was only hand lotion?), and boys sit in church pews, listening fanatically to see if they will change the old hymn to “where ox and lamb are feeding,” instead of that other word. The time when pastors are allowed to sing all sorts of utter lies about a jolly man in a red suit and a reindeer with a similarly scarlet nose that everyone knows doesn’t exist - and not a single, truth-loving member of the congregation cares. The time of year when we entertain all sorts of traditions - gift giving, kissing plants (that’s mistletoe to you), carol singing, murder of the pines (I’m sure every true blue tree-hugger buys a plastic one) - in a society that struggles to keep up even traditional traditions, like having a father and a mother at the head of the family.

A time when the songs exhort you to dream about snow, even though you dread it the rest of the year. When family finally comes before work, unless your name is Scrooge; and, even then, you might reconsider if only a Tiny Tim would walk - excuse me, hobble - into your life. A time when the stores are packed and the bars are empty (or are they?). A time when, for once, you might walk down the street and see people not only smiling, but cheerfully chatting with that all-suspicious complete and total strangers.

It’s a good thing, right? No matter what else they might accuse us of, at least the rest of the world has to admit that we know how to celebrate Christmas! Even if the point does get a bit lost in the whirlwind. Because even though we might congratulate ourselves that they’re using the word “Jesus” on the public radio stations as something other than a swear word, it’s easy to bypass the heart of the matter. We don’t do it on purpose; there’s just so many other things to look at. One more illegitimate baby to populate the globe isn’t really that spectacular. I could walk you down the street and point out ten more. Not that any of them had shepherds or angels singing over them; a nurse maybe, but no one crooning in Hebrew, and certainly nothing heavenly. Maybe that’s why two thousand years ago a good portion of the Israelites, the Pharisees, and the local rulers missed it. I’m not sure about the idea of a synagogue ruler belting out “I saw Mama kissing Santa Clause,” but I’m sure they had plenty of other things to look at. Something besides another illegitimate child.

Unless He wasn’t illegitimate. Unless it was miraculous. Unless the Son of God really did become flesh and make His dwelling among us, like John says He did. Unless He really was who He said He was. Is who He says He is. And if that’s all true, then Santa and Rudolph really ought to be tossed in the backseat with the Legos and fairytale books. We have more important things to look at.

Is It Wrong or Just Unfavorable Consequences?

Ancient Rome might have called it revolution. Greeks might have hailed it as the rise of a new philosophy. Middle Age Britishers might have called us all separatists and demanded the rack, and I’m sure someone somewhere might have used the word “witch.” Bonfire, anyone?

But in today’s modern, technologized, politicized, civilized 21st Century, we only say, “That’s just the way things are these days.” It isn’t a crime, you can’t scientifically prove that it’s wrong, and it’s not really hurting anyone, is it? So, give it up. Live and let live. Isn’t that what everyone else is doing? What’s the big deal about the downfall of modern morality anyway? Not that I’m addressing our lack of morals, mind you. No, this is worse. This is our wholesale extinction of them. The fact that we don’t have any. Just like you could walk down the street and find no pet dinosaur romping about in someone’s backyard.

You see, morality has become something of a dirty word here in the West. Moralists share the same boat as Communists: We’re not precisely sure what they are, but we’ve been told they’re up to no good, and we know how to spot one when we see one! The issue can be left-winged or right-winged, old-fashioned or radical, biased or impartial, even good or bad. It is hardly ever right or wrong.

Why? Because right and wrong don’t exist anymore. Drunk driving has unfavorable consequences. Murder will cost you any degree of respect, besides getting you thrown in jail. Giving to the poor is a great way to boost self-worth. Divorce is hard on the children. Helping the stranded driver on the side of the road - well, that’s a bit risky, but he might be grateful and give you twenty bucks. Stealing company money is bound to end you up jobless and friendless, and that’ll be your own fault and no one else’s. Does anyone say anymore a simple, “That is right; that is wrong”?

How would Jesus be received today, I wonder, with His blunt, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” and, “Unless you repent, you too will be condemned”? How, with His exclusive, “I am the way, the truth, and the light”? I mean, really, you must admit that does sound a bit narrow-minded of Him. But we have said we would like to be lowered to the level of animals, which have no moral consciousness; and, in doing so, we have all but lost our own. We have grasped hold of too many contradictions in our speech and thought patterns; and in doing so, have had to let go of our hold on truth.

And the worst is this: Since we have - or think we have - a good portion of the world’s money, the rest of the globe looks up to us. The trends we pick here are plastered on billboards across China. (I know; I’ve seen some of them.) The philosophies we so devotedly preach here are actually put into practice in nations like the Philippines, sometimes to devastating affect. We who claim to be the shepherds of the world are leading the flock down an incline that will quite possibly get us all killed. But is it really wrong, after all? Or is death simply another one of our unfavorable consequences?

From 1962

I have finished a rather interesting book written nearly half a century ago by a man who, as a public educator, had quite a right to hold opinions on public education. What follows is an abbreviated quote of what he had to say:

First, as written from his own point of view:

“In my view there is a sense in which education ought to be democratic and another sense in which it ought not. It ought to be democratic in the sense of being available, without distinction of sex, colour, class, race, or religion, to all who can - and will - diligently accept it. But once the young people are inside the school there must be no attempt to establish a factitious egalitarianism between the idlers and dunces on the one hand and the clever and industrious on the other. A modern nation needs a very large class of genuinely educated people and it is the primary function of schools and universities to supply them. To lower standards or disguise inequalities is fatal.”

Then, as written from the view of an enemy of the human race:

“In that promising land the spirit of I’m as good as you has already become something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system . . . The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils . . . At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have - I believe the English already use the phrase - ‘parity of esteem’ . . . The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I’m as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers - or should I say, nurses? - will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.”

Perhaps if you have looked very hard into America’s present-day educational system, you have seen something of this very sort going on. Perhaps I also ought to qualify the previous quotations by making several pertinent remarks. First, you might be interested to know that the man who wrote this admitted (even from nearly 50 years ago!) that he was writing specifically about the American educational system. Second, that said man was British (which is why he spelled color with a “u” and added an extra "l" to modeling). Third, that this man happens to be C.S. Lewis. The book, if you haven’t read it, is The Screwtape Letters, and the quotes are taken from an ending addition, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.”