It's Christmas Folks!

When I first saw this sculptured piece—I said yes. Jesus gave us the story. You know it. A son left home in a huff. He broke his Father’s heart. No letters…no phone calls—just silence. The Father did not know where his boy was. The Father must’ve looked out the window a hundred times. No sign. He could be dead for all he knew. Still no word. 

And then the Father saw a speck in the distance and then a figure and he knew who it was. He gathered up his robes and ran down the road. “My son…”he said: “My son!”As the young man got closer the old father saw there were lines in his face. His eyes seemed hollow. Ragged clothes if you could call them that. And the smell—It was awful. The boy had no sandals. And his eyes looked down.

Still not looking up the son said: “Father I am ashamed. I have sinned, you will never believe all the things I have done. Nothing worked out. The money you gave me is all gone. I was finally so hungry I ate what the pigs had left. Could you possibly take me back as maybe one of your servants?”

The old Father put his arms out. His face looked old. He shook his head. None of that talk. We thought you were dead and here you stand.  He yelled back to the servants: Bring him a robe—a good one. Put a fine ring on his finger. Bring him some clothes. Bring sandals for his dirty feet. “But Father” the boy said: “ I am so sorry…” The old man said, “No…no. You are my son and I love you more than you will ever know. Let’s go to the house.”He held the boy tight.

Why do I write this on this day? Because it is a Christmas story. Forget the manger and the donkey. And little lord Jesus asleep in the hay. Those things are so important but that’s not the essence of Christmas. This holy day really is arms wide open, brushing away all that any of us have done. 

It was Christmas at Church and this thin teenager dressed poorly stood in the line for Communion. As it was her time to reach out her hands she stopped. “A couple of weeks ago you said in a sermon that God even forgives prostitutes. Is that right?” The Priest said: “Yes.” the girl with arms covered with tattoos put her hands on her face and sobbed.

This is Christmas and this day we can leave it all behind. The secrets. The things we are ashamed of. The disappointments. The failures. Sins. Everything. Every thing.

And on this day when the virus has killed too many of us and we are not sure of the future God is here. Outside those church doors a world still convulses because of the too-muchness of it all. 

Remember as you leave this day and tip-toe into the future God is here. And remember every day the ragged boy and the arms outstretched for us all.

            

          --Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's Christmas Eve and we're all looking for a Home

          photo by russellstreet / flikr

"Come home, come home

All who are weary come home;

Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,

O sinner, come home."

--gospel song

It’s Christmas Eve and tonight most churches will be almost filled. This pandemic still scares a lot of people. But from all over many will come. Janie with her five-old daughter. The Business man who has dragged his wife and four daughters to this service. Bill trying desperately to kick drugs. Too many rehabs.There’s the little old woman with blue hair there with her Bible. She sits alone. All over the house there are children straining their necks wondering what will happen. Joe sits in the corner gay but has never come out. The Chinese couple with one child. The husband with  his wife who comes in holding tight with her slow dementia shuffle.  The widow who lost her sister and her husband from the virus this awful year. 

What do we say to all of these and to us, too?  We settle down as the lights flicker. The best way that I know to write about this Christmas Eve is to tell you a story. This story is so beautiful and powerful that it has been told everywhere. Pete Hamill, a journalist wrote these words…

Three boys and three girls from New York boarded a bus on 34th Street. They were going to Fort Lauderdale where they hoped it would be warm and fun. They carried with them a big bottle of wine and a bag of sandwiches. The kids began to play a game by looking at the people on the bus and wondering who they were. And they pointed to this man in the brown suit on the third row. Who he was and where was he going?

Somewhere around Washington the bus stopped at Howard Johnson’s and most of the bus got off. But this man just sat there and finally got up and went into the restaurant and took a booth.. The kids from New York  began to whisper: “Who do you think he is? A derelict, maybe he had run away from his wife. He didn’t look like a serial killer. “ 

When they got back on the bus and one of the girls sat next to him. “What’s your name?”she asked. “Vingo.” What’s yours?” “Mary Anne.”“We’re going to Florida. Can’t wait. We’ve never been there.” It’’s beautiful the man replied. The girls leaned close and asked him if he lived there? “I did”, he answered. And then he began to tell her his story…

He has been in jail in New York for four years and now he was going home. Are you married? He said he didn’t know. You don’t know? 

And he said he told his wife that when he left if she wanted to start over with someone else he would understand. If the kids started asking questions try not to say too much. He never heard a word. “And so you’re going home, now knowing?” He nodded.  He told her that last week as his parole was coming through he wrote her saying: “I’ll be coming that way on a Greyhound Bus.” 

He didn’t know if his wife would take him back. Vingo told Mary Anne they used to live in Brunswick and there was a huge oak tree there—very famous. Vingo wrote and said if you want to see me me tie a yellow  ribbon on that tree and I’ll get off the bus. If not, he would keep going.

Mary Anne she moved back where her friends sat. She told them the story about the man and Brunswick and the yellow ribbon. The kids started looking out the window for Brunswick and that tree.Then it was ten miles and five miles and closer and closer. The kids started laughing and clapping and crying and even dancing in the aisle. But Vingo just sat there stunned. 

The tree was covered with yellow handkerchiefs. Twenty, thirty maybe more. Those handkerchiefs just fluttered in the wind. The old con got up and made his way off the bus to go home. The kids yelled and clapped as he left.

As I remembered this old story I thought about all of us everywhere sitting in some candle-lit church. And all those others who wold never come. This night of nights is for us all. As we leave the service and head for home I hope we will remember that yellow ribbon and the One whose arms still takes all in.

courtesy of flikr

 Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

My Christmas Surprise--Advent IV

 

Everybody has a Christmas story. There is something about this season that stirs memories and sends us back to other times and other places. The McKenzies were my neighbors.They lived across the street from our house in a tumble down house that needed  lot of work. They were only renting but this was their home. They loved it and tried to fix it up. The task was just too much. They had four children-stair steps. Mr. McKenzie worked in a mill six hard days a week. His wife stayed home with the children. They lived from paycheck to paycheck. And then tragedy struck. Mr.McKenzie broke his leg. And it was so serious the Doctor said it is a miracle they didn't have to amputate. He he would he laid up for months. I had no idea how they would live but the church was good and somehow they got by. 

Christmas was coming and our little church tried to help them with their Christmas. This home would have only a little Christmas. The Father was disabled and his paycheck stopped. 

We visited them occasionally and became friends. So Christmas Day was coming fast. And so Christmas Eve some of us gathered a huge basket and put not only food for Christmas but for days to come. After it was dark on Christmas Eve we sneaked over and left the basket at their door.

Christmas morning there was a knock on our door. I opened it and Mr. McKenzie on crutches was standing there smiling. He said somebody left a great basket of fruit and other things and we want to share our Christmas box with you.  And his wife handed us a huge sack of some of the items we had out on their porch the night before. They said Merry Christmas, turned and left. 

I stood there with my wife not knowing what to say. This couple with so little shared part of their Christmas with us. Isn’t this what Christmas is all about? We share with what we have with someone who need. We pass it on.

I’ve thought a lot about this stormy time in which we live. The anger and lies and greed and the lack of common decency makes it hard to celebrate this holy season. But Jesus said:“Inasmuch as you do this to the least of these…you do it to me.” 

Looking back to that Christmas long ago I think as that man hobbled back to his house on his crutches. Maybe I was unaware of the face of Jesus that cold Christmas morning but who knows? On that special day he may have been at our house after all. 

This must have been say, 50 years ago. But a funny thing sitting here, wondering what to say in this piece I remember that long-ago morning and I am glad.

--photo by runran / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Coming Home for Christmas - Advent III

 

This is the third Sunday of Advent. We’re still waiting. Why? We come back here every year knowing full well that Christmas is right around the corner. What’s the big deal? We’ve learned somewhere along the way that sometimes the smallest things are the big deal. The big deal is that everybody will be home. And as we travel by planes, trains and automobiles we remember. Not all good of course. But not all bad either. 

We come back home to touch the base. To get reconnected with each other. To find back home what we never ever found any place else. Even in those old houses where it all happened now gone. Yet the places come alive in our dreams and our memories. Maybe these really are the ties that bind. 

I remember a story Robert McAfee Brown told. But I can’t locate the story.* He  wrote all the kids were home for Christmas. And they came from far and wide. And some not so far.  

John with his live-in. Barry still struggling with his divorce and missing his two kids. Joe that worried us to death for so long. How many times in recovery. How many lapses. Yet it looks more promising than it has in a long time. Joe missed so many Christmases somewhere else.  But this Christmas he is here and we are all glad. And then there's is Mary, brilliant with her PhD and wishing she could find somebody.

So we, Mama and Papa are so glad to have everybody again under the same roof. Robert Brown said that on Christmas Eve they all gathered in the living room around the crèche of Jesus in the manger and Joseph and Mary. Brown writes that here we all are home. And this holy night we hunker down by these figures that have changed it all. 

I don’t remember what Brown said after that except it was cold and the wind blew. And even at Christmas there is a world heartbreak and meanness out there. But this father said we still do what we always have done. This, he reminded his family that standing there with the fire flickering and that holy couple with their tiny baby was  the centerpiece of it all. 

And we keep too keep coming back year after year.  Knowing that whatever sadness and wrongness there is outside these doors we come back to remember again this tiny little candle of hope. Nothing can extinguish it's power. And hopefully after the tree sags and the turkey is no more and most of our family members pack their bags and head for home. But somehow in our own ways we remember those old words that some of us learned at Sunday School: "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out."

*This story from the late theologian Robert McAfee Brown I read in one of his books which I cannot find. So I have taken liberties with his children and the family itself. They all came. They were there for Christmas and they gathered around the creche on Christmas Eve.

--Roger Lovette  /rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's Gayle's Birthday!

 This picture was taken somewhere in a Scottish village. Nobody loves coffee more than Gayle.

If I could tell you all she means to me it would take up way more than this page.

I love you...I love you...I love you! 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Coming Home for Christmas - Advent II

One of the great metaphors for Christmas is home. Weeks from now millions will be coming from distances far and near. Just to touch some base, feel some emotional tug, find some place real or imagined where we feel safe and secure. And those at home will be preparing  all sorts of ways to say welcome to all us loved ones that come. 

One of my favorite home stories comes from Robert Penn Warren. In his book, A Place to Come To. He tells a story about a young man raised in a dreary place. I think it was a coal mining town where life was hard and hope seemed far away. The Mother and Father lived there with their little boy. As he grew older his mother was determined that he would not be trapped in that town as so many others. Over and over she would say,”Son, one day you are going to have to leave.” And after the boy had graduated from High School his Mother kissed him, held him tight and told him he could not stay. She wanted him to live in a better world and know a better life. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing she ever did. So he left  and found a larger place and a bigger world. She wrote him often just reminding him: “ You can’t come back,—you might get trapped.” And so he missed them so much but stayed away.

Years later his father died and the mother married again. The boy had never met his stepfather. And when his mother died he came back for her funeral. His stepfather told him, “Did you know that your Mother changed the sheets on your bed every week just in case you decided to come home.” No wonder Warren, the author entitled his book A Place to Come To.

For me this is a Christmas story. There really is a place we can come home to. No wonder most of us make that trip back year after year. We know when we get there a candle will be in the window and our family members will hug and kiss us and welcome us home.

Christmas comes in just a few weeks. But whoever we are and what we have done or not done the sheets on the bed have been changed and we will find love and care and warmth. 

“Unto to us  a child is born…unto us a son is given …and his name will be called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’” 

--Roger Lovette /rogerlovette.blogspot.com