Is There Room In Our Hearts for the Whole Story?

Rome Violinist and Family, March 2001

Photo Credit: Mark Grace

One of the most frequent questions I hear people being asked around Christmas time is, "What is your favorite Christmas memory?"  

I love that question.  It inevitably invites us into the worshipful rooms of our lives, often connected to our sense of childhood wonder and personal experiences of having been loved deeply.

That is why it is striking to me that every Christmas season seems so filled with a kind of desperate frenzy to escape anything unpleasant and to eat and drink ourselves into a kind of forgetful stupor from which we only wake sometime after New Year's day.  I don't mean this as a judgment on others because I seem to be as easily caught up in the sickness as anyone else on the planet.

THE CHRISTMAS STORY IS ABOUT ABUNDANCE CHEEK-BY-JOWL WITH SCARCITY

The sometimes disruptive reality of this season is that the family in the picture above have lived closer to the real story of Christmas than many of us will ever imagine. 

Indeed, that story is being lived out every single Christmas all over again.  It shouldn't take a Sandy Hook elementary to call our attention to it.  The fact is that more people die in the U.S. on Christmas and New Year's Day than at any other time of year, and not just from auto crashes, drug overdoses or family violence.  More people succumb to nearly every kind of illness on those two days of the year than at any other time.  

There is nothing new to the reality that death and deprivation attend us at every step, even into the heart of our most holy of celebrations.

THANKS FOR BUMMING ME OUT, MR. COMFORT AND JOY . . .

As a matter of fact, I have been known to display my fair share of angst-ridden moodiness, and not just on Christmas.  I'm a year-round equal opportunity depressive.

But wait just a bit before you turn away toward your second helping of turkey and tamales.  Don't grab that third bottle of beer just yet.  Give me a minute to make my last point.

You see, if anything at all should give us comfort AND joy this year it is just this fact.  What we are celebrating is the birth of God Almighty INTO the worst possible circumstances to deliver us to peace.  

Jesus wasn't born to create this confusing, stress inducing festival of turkey and cranberry sauce or to make possible a big giant tree with mounds of presents under them.  

Christ came into the world to be with us at the most difficult time.  To assure us that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.

Somehow that seems to me to be the most important part of this story- more hopeful than new possessions, more reliable than even good fortune and the absence of pain. So many people on this planet right now are living in need, facing despair, crossing the threshold of death.  I believe they belong in our Christmas as much as Santa or tinsel or a new iPad.  In fact, our ability to see them as part of this story is what makes this holiday a holy day.

Christmas Blessings,

Mark

Comfort and Joy

Photo Credit: Mark Grace

Did you ever have one of those days when you thought, "It just doesn't get any better than this."

I had one of those days yesterday.  It started with Daniel Solis knocking on our door at 8:00 a.m. with pots and pans and a good two pounds of chorizo in hand.  He fixed up the best meal I've had in a long time for our monthly men's breakfast.  Cafe con leche, pan dulce, huevos con chorizo, tortillas and great fellowship.

One of the attendees was another Daniel, Daniel Alonzo, who has been to hell and back this past year.  He lost something like fifty-five pounds on account of a mystery illness, and in the middle of that he and Rachel took in one of their sons and three kids below the age of five.

But here he was healthy again, enjoying breakfast and receiving congratulations on having been named "Grandparent of the Year" by a local Spanish language newspaper.

Photo Credit: Mark Grace

We left the house to go to church where we bowed our heads while the names of 20 children and six adults from Newtown, Connecticut were read.  We all prayed and wept as though they were family members of our own.  While we wept for them we remembered our own children cut down by illness and tragedy over the last few years.

We shared food boxes with everyone in attendance.  We rejoiced with new church attenders who came to tell us how much our church had come to mean to them.  "My life is so much better now that I am worshipping with you all," one said, "I am happy now, free of habits that were killing me.  I thank God for this church.

Later in the day we listened as our children taught us the Christmas story all over again. 

They lifted our spirits as they acted out the nativity drama. Iglesia Bill Harrod's annual Christmas pageant is a one-of-a-kind experience that never fails to make us proud, gives us hearty laughter-- sometimes in the most unexpected points in the program-- and renews our sense of God's presence with us.

Afterward we crowded around to see our newest star, one month old Joel, who debuted in his first Christmas pageant as the baby Jesus.

When the service was over a large group of us caroled all over Ledbetter neighborhood, blessing and being blessed by our ancianitos y los enfermos (elders and the sick from our congregation) who let us serenade them.

Finally we drove to Daniel and Debbie Solis' house for a feast.  We watched the Cowboys pull off an over time victory, then we listened to the President do his best to console family and community members in Newtown.  

Then we consoled one another with our love and hugs and prayers for a blessed Christmas season.

May your Christmas be half as blessed, one-tenth as sacred as the time our church spent together yesterday.  

Blessings,

Mark

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com