Every December I like to read Garrison Keillor's story about a young boy who wanted a Lionel Train Set for Christmas.
The father, of a family of seven, was in the hospital and unable to work. The mother, worried about money did her best to prepare the children, "I'm sorry, but we won't be able to have much Christmas this year."
This news was not easy to swallow for the eldest boy, aged ten, who had been dropping hints since September about the Lionel train set, deluxe with the livestock loader. He even mentioned it frequently to God, reminding God that the train was on display in Lundgren's store window. On Christmas morning, the boy opened his gifts; a pocketknife, wrapped homemade candies, and new pair of winter boots. There was no train. After Christmas dinner, the boy asked if he could go outside. He needed some place to nurse his sadness. As he tromped along in his new boots, he walked out on the iced-over lake, and let the tears flow.
After enough time passed, the boy turned to head back home. As he turned, with the sun nearly set, he saw the lights of the town shimmering before him. He squinted his eyes and could pick out his own house, on the left, not far from shore. It all looked, he realized, exactly like a town in a Lionel train layout, and if he squinted just right, the smoke rising from the chimney look like a steam engine.
Then he knew; the whole world is a Lionel Train Set. And he walked home with a lighter step, in his brand new Christmas boots.
"In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move to another and then another," Thomas Merton once commented. "But that is not the way to build a life of prayer. In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there. All we need is to experience what we already possess."
That sure sounds good... until you don't see the train set under the tree on Christmas morning. Life is seldom what we wish for, and it's easy to miss the Lionel Train Set, almost every time.
My favorite part of the story?
After, the boy walked with a lighter step.
With awareness comes gratitude.
With gratitude weights are lifted, and there is a sense of peace.
For the Christian faith, it is Advent, waiting for the birth of the Prince of Peace. With its requisite spat over whether we use Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. What a worthy debate, as we jostle one another, both hands loaded with shopping bags from Macys, Nordstrom and the Gap. I can do December sales with the best of them, so it is wise not to pretend that words like Merry Christmas can be elevated to a moral concern when our primary preoccupation (or worship?) is consumerism. Say what you want, but nothing will change until we move from being a stuff-oriented society to being a relationship-oriented society.
This much is true: Long lines are perfect for eavesdropping. Where truth is always stranger than fiction. One shopper stands at the counter of Restoration Hardware, two bags on one arm, a cell phone in the opposite hand, held up to her ear. Those of us in the long line are hostage to her one-sided conversation, for which there is (unfortunately) neither volume nor mute dial on her telephone voice.
"It's so sad," she is telling her cell phone. "I don't think people really see the meaning of Christmas. It feels so secular now. I don't know what's happening to our culture... I know, I know, and Gina's school, they won't even let her sing Away in a Manger."
The clerk motions to the woman talking on the phone. The woman answers the clerk in a clipped tone, "NO, I said put that on the Visa card too. And I want separate bags for those."
She continues, to the phone, as if this has all been one long sentence, "Okay. Gotta go, It's sooooo crazy right now. So much last minute stuff to do. Let's get together for a latte later."
When she walks past, I think about the "hope and fears of all the years," and I wish her a Merry Christmas.
Merton goes on to say, "If we really want prayer, we must slow down to a human tempo and we'll begin to have time to listen. And as soon as we listen to what's going on, things will begin to take shape by themselves. The reason why we don't take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness."
Tell me again the reason for Advent season?
What if the power is in the waiting itself, in the space waiting creates.
What if, it's not about getting over the waiting, or having answers for the waiting. In other words, it is not about absence, but awareness.
Truth is, we don't know what Mary learned as she pondered. What we do know is that she made space.
To receive.
To welcome.
To invite.
There is a weight, value and substance in the very space that waiting allows. Why? Because so much gets in the way of our not waiting and not seeing: speed, intolerance, antagonism, fear, expectations, apprehension, inattentiveness, worry... and stuff.
With awareness comes gratitude.
With gratitude weights are lifted, and there is a sense of peace.
If you wait, you never know what you may see.
The other night I watched Joyeux Noel, a story about waiting. About seeing. And about peace.
By Christmas, 1914, World War I--raging for only four months--had already become one of the bloodiest wars in history. Soldiers on both sides were trapped in trenches, exposed to cold and wet winter weather, covered in mud, and susceptible to sniper shots. On December 7, 1914, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus of the war for the celebration of Christmas, asking "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang." Powers that be said, "No".
And yet. On that Christmas Eve in 1914, in a place of mud and cold and bloodshed, something unexpected and extraordinary occurred.
A few men saw what others did not see.
With strains from Christmas carols (in three languages) floating into the sky, soldiers from both sides--in the fields of the southern portion of the Ypres Salient--stuck their heads out of the trenches, set aside their weapons and their hatred, if only temporarily, and walked out to meet in No Man's Land.
Captain Charles Stockwell was one of the first out of the trench. He writes that he shouted, "Don't shoot. We don't want to fight today. We will send you some beer."
The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There is a story that soldiers from opposing sides played a good natured game of soccer.
One officer writes in a letter home, "We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas, and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years. We were in front of their wire entanglements and surrounded by Germans--Fritz and I in the centre talking, and Fritz occasionally translating to his friends what I was saying. We stood inside the circle like streetcorner orators."
No, the peace did not last. The war continued. And was bloody.
But on this one night...
on this one night...
on this one night...
there is peace.
What if the waiting of Advent is the story of a God
who pitches a tent among us, even as we live
in the midst of a culture grown weary,
from too much work, from too much haste,
from too much fear, and from too much war?
Waiting provides a space for recollection... even in the middle, even in the muddle, even in No Man's Land.
For what we value.
For those things and people for which we are grateful.
For the gift of simple grace.
Our snow has melted here. It was lovely while it lasted. And the rain has returned. I walk out into the garden at dusk and look back at the house. The lights on the tree sparkle from inside the living room. I squint my eyes...
Note: Last week I wrote that here in the PNW we had "Gray, with a chance of gray. It's easy to miss the gifts, when you see only gray." I received a note from Anne Albers, with a poem written by her nine-year-old son Eric. It's worth passing on... thanks Eric.
Grays Amazing Life
I am a gray crayon. Why do I love gray? My favorite thing would
be a thunderstorm because I would be the color of the sky.
I would want to be a road plus bridges so it is easier for cars.
I would be horses, cars and so much more.
I love being gray.
Eric Albers
