My first memory of Christmas is a question.
What do you want? What do you want for Christmas. So I shot for the stars.
I tried to be good for even more than goodness sake. And I was rarely disappointed.
After all, I had a grandfather. I knew that at most times, and especially
at Christmas, my grandfather could be counted on. When he asked me, what
do you want for Christmas, I could almost always bank my answer for a Christmas
morning dividend. And then, often, as I remember it, shortly before dinner,
when no one was looking he would slip me a five dollar bill. Don't tell
your parents, he said. It was magic. No, it was grace, undeserved and magnificent.
To me my grandfather was the richest and most generous man in the world.
I was 100% half right. Far more generous than he was rich, when my grandfather
died there was nothing left. Only memories. Memories which still pay wonderful
dividends. Not in five dollar increments but in love, given and received,
never forgotten, now passed on to my own children, and if, one day I am
so blessed, to my grandchildren as well.
So, what do you want for Christmas? Since my wife is here and three shopping
days remain, I'll tell you what I want and I bet you I'll get it. I want
a new watch. Not an expensive watch, but a watch with a band that will not
wear out in 10 months. When I buy a watch that is what happens. I now have
three watches with broken watch bands. Which is to say, that all I really
need for Christmas is a new watchband. But that wouldn't be quite as much
fun as a new watch, so I'm holding out. In the mean time, though I have
paused several times at the Rite Aid display, I will have to wait to Christmas
to know what time it is. But that's okay. Timelessness is a little like
eternity. And eternity is what this season is about.
When I was a little boy I loved Christmas more than any other holiday. And
yet, my grandfather's generosity notwithstanding, in the frenzy of gifts
and family, few Christmas days passed without me bursting into tears, having
broken some new toy or been overloaded with excitement, exasperating my
parents, who either had to placate me in front of company or suffer as they
sent me to my room. I recovered quickly. So did they. It is only in recent
years, watching my own children, that I sense the real poignancy of this.
The contrast of lights and darkness, of joy and pain.
For young and old alike, it's a high stakes season. We want to give our
loved ones what they want to receive, yet know that sometimes we will fail.
Some matters seem out of our control, beyond our abilities. It's a terrible
season to be lonely, also a terrible season to play double or nothing, for
even when everyone is trying his or her best, it's hard for joy to be unforced
or sorrow disguised. The facade is fragile.
I don't cry on Christmas anymore. That's because I am a grownup. I probably
should. One of these years I should probably lie down next to the tree and
cry. As with most of us, the language of my dreams is strewn with broken
toys, with disappointed hopes and honest fears. But that's okay. That's
life. Cry if you must but there is reason too for joy, whatever your plight,
however sharp your pain. That's one reason Christmas exists, not to make
us merry, but to lead us back down the twisted road of meaning to a manger,
where another family--a dysfunctional family I might add--gives us a somewhat
different glimpse into life's possibilities.
Think for a moment about this family. Homeless. Made up of an unwed mother,
a co-dependent father, who doesn't have the faintest idea what is going
on, and a baby, who, to his own unwitting peril, has caught the attention
of the authorities, both earthly and divine.
Yet the story is full of redemptive magic. Mad scientists from the East
flee their endless theories in search of true reality. Shepherds cast away,
if only for one blessed evening, the harsh reality of their stark existence
for a night of heavenly star-gazing. Animals talk. Angels sing. And autocrats
and bureaucrats play their roles to a tragicomic T, giving impractical dreamers
first a good scare and then the last laugh. It's a good story, offering
reason to celebrate as the days get darker and the shadows--domestic, national,
international--ribbon the datelines of our turning year.
When I was a little boy, wishing upon the Christmas star, my wishes almost
often came true. And yet, somehow, they didn't. The toy I prayed for was
less interesting, more fragile, than I had imagined it to be in my dreams.
And then, when reality didn't meet expectation I was disappointed. Sometimes
I tucked my disappointment in. Sometimes I misbehaved. How strange, looking
back, to remember Christmas tears as much as Christmas joy.
I'm glad I'm no longer a child. It's hard being a child, hard to balance
expectation and fulfillment. Children don't fake emotions as well as adults.
I can remember my mother, quite appropriately, preaching to me one Christmas,
about how selfishly I was acting, about how little appreciation I expressed,
especially to my grandfather for all his generosity. I was Scrooge. I was
the Grinch who stole Christmas. The good news is she didn't let me cry myself
to sleep. She came to my bedside and told me how much she loved me. Which
was a better way, better than being angry or disappointed, to teach me what
Christmas is all about.
Today, as I approach my 49th Christmas, in one respect I am grateful to
want only a watch or even a watch band. My expectations are small. They
are almost certain not to be disappointed.
But in another respect I probably want too little. Because what we should
want for Christmas, if we are to do Christmas right, should be something
much more akin to what my grandfather wanted than what I wanted as a child.
We should want, and give -- of ourselves -- everything we can to fulfill
the wants and needs of others. Gifts are a part of this, of course they
are, but only as expressions of a deeper wish, that our loved ones receive
the most precious gift of all, our love, our commitment, our joy in their
happiness and flourishing.
So this Christmas, as I wish upon a star, I pray that I may wish upon the
star that startled the shepherds and drew the wise men, the star that in
its brightness dimmed the attraction of all lesser stars. I wish, not upon
my star, but your star, our star, the star of love given and so received
that we receive in giving so much more than we give up. In fact, we give
up nothing. We get what everyone should want at Christmas. For others to
be as deeply loved and cared for as we have it in our power for them to
be.
The gift of giving so transcends all other gifts. My grandfather knew this.
I bet he even knew it when I disappointed him by my selfishness and self-absorption.
By giving away everything -- and I'm speaking of his love as much as his
money -- he died lacking nothing, and I and my brother and my mother and
so many others continue to live on the principle.
So that's what I really want for Christmas this year. I want to be like
my grandfather. When it comes to stars, wishful thinking doesn't hold a
candle to what I call thoughtful wishing: thinking to wish for what we already
have, for what can do -- especially for others -- for who we can be, not
tomorrow, but today.
In this spirit, let me close with a prayer, a wish upon the Christmas star.
If we fill our lives with things, and yet more things,
If we feel that we must fill every moment that we have with activity,
When will we have the time to make the long, slow journey
across the burning desert, as did the Wise Men?
Or sit and watch the stars, as did the shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child, as did Mary?
For each of us, there is a desert to travel,
A star to discover and follow,
And a being within ourselves to bring to life.
This holiday season, I wish for you, all around you,
People who love easily
and forgive quickly;
whose eyes are stars when you are night,
Whose voices are trumpets when you are silence;
whose silences are soothing
when together you are seeking the gentle satisfaction of peace.
I wish for you
People about you who are gifts in themselves,
and whose presence
brings to life within your heart the very joy of life itself,
the deepest joy of all our joys, the joy of timelessness, the joy of eternity.
Amen. Copyright AllSouls 1998