Bah humbug - really?

What's the first thing you think of when I say the name, "Scrooge"? 

I'll bet it isn't the 'after' picture.  It's probably the 'before' picture. Which is weird because it's the story of how someone changed from the before to the after. You'd think the after picture would be the one that stuck.  Hm. I think that the "after" picture was the one Dickens originally wanted to leave with people.

My all-time favorite film rendition of his famous short story, "A Christmas Carol"  is the one which stars Patrick Stewart, produced in 1999. Mr. Stewart did a far better job of projecting the inner anguish of the man - and the inevitable gratitude and joy - than anyone I've ever seen portray the character.  

Image found through Google at :
http://southernchristmascarol.blogspot.com/2009/01/
fred-nephew-good-ol-boy.html

Although I love the "after" picture that Dickens paints of his famous character, I still hesitate to call anyone "Scrooge."  It conjures up - for most people - a mean-spiritedness that overshadows and poisons interactions with others in a way that frustrates even the best efforts to include the person.  Yet the story of Scrooge delves into the reasons for his sour disposition.  Life had not been kind to him so he was not kind in return.

I must admit that a lot of the time I tend to avoid all the interactions and festivities that go on at this time of year, and I'm sure that some people think that I'm a "Scrooge".  In some ways I guess I am.  I'm not sure if it has to do with my own introverted nature (probably a lot of it right there) or just that I've seen so much that goes on in the name of "Christmas spirit" which - to me - just isn't.  

Loneliness dogs my steps at this time of year, something like a hungry wolf who isn't just satisfied with the rodents he finds along the trail but is after bigger game: me.  Sometimes I wonder why I even go to the trouble of decorating and going to social functions.  If I go, I feel out of place, excluded.  I probably am not, but that's my perception. Even in a crowd, I can relate a lot to the child Scrooge, being left behind when his school mates were off to spend Christmas break with their families - feeling like he didn't have anywhere he felt accepted.  Many times I've felt like that.  Sometimes I've even wanted to check out.  Especially when I have been reminded of just how alone I am, how people just tolerate me and don't "get" me at all.  

It is a short step from that perception of non-acceptance, that feeling of utter misery, to putting a hard crust over my heart and not letting anyone in ... so as to avoid being more hurt.  Probably I have already done that in some ways. 

Some days are better than others.  I'm up, I'm optimistic, I'm ready to face the world.  Life is good.

Some days, however, it takes all I have just to get out of bed and face the great gaping black hole of not fitting in anywhere.  I feel that I don't fit in at work - there I'm "too religious." Or just "too weird."  I don't fit in at church because there, I'm not "religious enough." Or just "too weird."  On such days, I cling by my fingernails to the slogan, 'one day at a time' because if I think about the abyss of endless days looming in front of me, I could easily fall into it and lose myself in despair.  

At such times, the festivities and the usual chit-chat only serve to highlight for me how "apart" I feel.  And I can fully understand why the highest rates of suicides are at Christmas-time. The crowded streets, the even more crowded stores, and all the talk about family get-togethers and parties and so forth, all serve to heighten my misery.  There's nothing wrong with parties, family get-togethers, and all the festivities this season has to offer.  It's just that when a person doesn't feel accepted or appreciated, maybe not even loved, the last thing he or she wants to attend is another social function that highlights how excluded he or she feels.  It doesn't mean that the person is anti-social or that he or she hates Christmas.  I happen to like Christmas - just not all the frenetic activity surrounding it (or any other family-oriented holiday going), the pushing people around in stores (jostling elbows and people saying "excuse me" all the time - which, after the 100th time I've heard it, sounds more like "move your fat rear" than "I need to get past you.")  That, combined with the social expectations, the family obligations, and so forth, tend to make me want to do my Christmas shopping online and vastly limit my social and family obligations.  Most folks call that a clear-cut case of 'bah humbug.'  .... I kind of don't. 

I prefer, instead, to rid myself of what drives me crazy about all the crowds and so forth, to dissociate myself from the idea - however accepted it may be - of reciprocity (you give me something so now, I'm obligated to give you something) and of one-upmanship (Aunt Sue had us to her place last year and she had a sumptuous feast; we have to outdo her this year at our place), and instead take a trip in my mind to a dripping cave in a hillside in Middle-Eastern springtime to visit a little baby.  His mom has wrapped him tightly in strips of cloth like a mummy is wrapped, and placed him into a hollowed out rock (nothing wooden in that place except perhaps the pitchfork to toss hay into the rock manger).  That humble scene brings home to me the wonder of the distance God traveled in order to become one of us - all for love.  Not that we loved Him, or that we even COULD - but that He loved us first.

When I focus on that  -  I remember that there is definitely something worthwhile to celebrate.

Light my Candle

One of the things we do every Christmas Eve as a family is go to the Christmas Eve service at our church.  It's a candlelight service.  Every person over the age of about 10 is given a candle ... unlit ... with a cardboard ring under it to catch the wax.

At the end of the service, a single candle which has been burning throughout the carol sing, is used to light the candles of the people on the end of each pew.  That person lights the next person's candle, and so on.

Our kids love to go to this.  They sing the carols with gusto and their favorite part is the candle-lighting part... the pastor says a few words of inspiration and then we all sing "Silent Night" as someone plays the piano or a guitar.  After that, our family goes out looking at Christmas lights in the city, and after that, we all traipse home and sing Christmas carols around the tree, and we have hot chocolate and maybe watch Christmas specials until it's time to go to bed.

I love watching the flame on a candle. Even when I was a child, I'd watch the single tongue of fire piercing the darkness when the power would go out in the evening during a winter storm.  I'd lose myself in its subtle variances of colour and strength, watch how it danced and in so doing, invited the shadows to dance with it.  It drew me, like some indescribable force telling me that it represented purity, passion, power. Calling me to something more, to something higher.  Still does.


I remember a candlelight service I attended once many years ago in a little country church.  There might have been about fifty people there, maybe less.  Everyone had their candles, unlit.  The pastor asked us to move with our candles to the outside of the room and make a circle all around the edge of the sanctuary.  Once we were in place, he had someone turn off the lights, revealing only one candle burning at the front of the church. Then he lit the first person's candle on either side of him, and we lit each other's candles until everyone's was burning. 

The pastor started by saying, "I'm not going to speak very many words tonight.  All I will say is that God has given each one of us who believes in Jesus a light inside.  He has reached into the darkness in each of us ... and lit our candles.  Now, since these candles we've just lit tonight represent that light in each of us, and God in our lives, I would like you to try a little experiment with me to see what happens."  

We all looked at him quizzically. 

"Please take your candles, and keeping them upright, slowly lower them down as low as you can get them without bending or squatting."  We did.  The light level in the room diminished significantly. "What just happened?" he said, and we told him it got darker. He nodded.  "Now, just as slowly, I want you to lift them up again, and keep going until they are as high as you can get them."  We did, and we saw the light grow in the room until it was twice as bright as when they were in front of us at chest level.  

"I think you get the point of my sermon," he said softly.


We did.
 

In His Hands

Today we had a baby dedication in our church. The church has been having a "baby boom" of sorts; this was the 3rd or 4th in the last few weeks.

We've been using the story of Samuel being brought back to the Temple by his mom Hannah, who prayed for a son and promised God that if He gave her a son, she would give the child back to Him. God did - and she kept her word.

We also refer to the presenting of Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. The Briss- or circumcision - was a time to name the child and to dedicate him to the Lord.

But did you know that there was a special ceremony for the first-born male child? The first-born child, if it was a son, was considered "holy unto the Lord" and by rights should have been sacrificed to God. But God made provision in the Law for such a child to be redeemed: rescued from death. His parents made a sacrifice to God in his place. If the parents were poor, they sacrificed two turtledoves, so that the child could live. Yes, Jesus had to be redeemed...so that He could redeem us. How's that for humility after knowing ultimate glory and majesty??

Few things in life are more vulnerable and totally dependent than a baby is. Yet Jesus - the Creator of the universe - not only became a human, He arrived as a squalling, wriggling bundle of need.

Just one more proof of the lengths to which God was willing to go, so that we could know Him - and allow Him to permeate our hearts with His love and make them clean.

But that's not all. In coming to us like that, He gave us the perfect picture of how to come to Him.

Naked. Needy. Helpless. Vulnerable.

He wraps His arms around that kind of honesty. And then He reaches for His pen - the one that writes in the indelible ink of His blood - and writes our names one by one in the Lamb's Book of Life.

We can rest assured - in His hands.