Christmas Angels

Before we get to the part you came here for today I have to tell a little story. A few years ago we had a woman show up at our church named Mercy Tatang. She came because we had another family in our church from Cameroon, Africa. There is a strong Presbyterian presence in that country and it’s only natural for them to find a Presbyterian church when they come to the US. A couple of years afterwards she met a guy named Divine Kuja. Then they got married. Then, only two or three weeks ago they had a baby. And anytime you plan a living tableau for Christmas Eve you automatically look for the newest baby in the congregation. So Carvelle Kuja played Baby Jesus this year and his parents were Mary and Joseph. The more this settled on me, I came to realize Baby Jesus was the child of Mercy and Divine. Now, if that isn’t a sermon come down to greet us in the flesh, then we’re just not paying attention.

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If you have spent any time living in Dallas you know what Christmas morning brings. You probably look forward to it every year without realizing it. And then it shows up right on schedule and you realize it wouldn’t be Christmas without it. It’s the annual reprint of Paul Crume’s column on Angels.

But, before I could post it here, I had to get my hands on a copy of it. I probably should have clipped the column out and saved it years ago; probably some of you have. I had a pretty good idea I could find it on the internet. So I typed in three words: “Paul Crume Christmas” and immediately got 1,210 hits.

I had the original column that was written in 1967 and reprinted by the Dallas Morning News every year since. But my curiosity got me and I decided to see what the other 1,209 references showed.

Somewhere after the reference to it on a site in Puerto Rico and a bunch of other places, I found a reference to it on a blog written by Jerry Kendrick. At first glance I saw the blog was something a soldier wrote during the time he spent in Iraq. The blog is dated from December, 2004 to March, 2005. The entry that quoted Paul Crume was December 23, 2004. Before I knew what I was doing, I hit print and ended up with the entire story of his time in Iraq, all 64 pages of it.

I decided that since I’m so against this war, and have been from the beginning, maybe I owed it to Jerry to read his account of his time in Iraq before I went any further.

So I read Jerry Kendrick’s blog. All 64 pages of it. I would recommend it to you:
http://sandboxdiary.blogspot.com/
What he had to say was very much like what I had read about the Christmas Truce of 1914. Not that the current war has produced any truce or even an understanding of each other’s religion. And the other side isn’t even what anyone would describe as a military.

But all wars are fought by humans just like you and me on both sides. Humans that get scared, cold and lonesome for their family. We have so much more in common that we realize. Here’s something Jerry says in his last entry as he finish his tour and came home:

For my conscience’s sake, I hasten to point out that my tour in Iraq was essentially a vacation compared to the soldiers who were at the tip of the spear every day. They had a 12 month (or longer) tour, compared to my 5 months. They went outside the wire much more often, or did the street fighting to reclaim a city from the criminals and terrorists. Those are the folks doing our nation’s dirty, dangerous work, and they deserve your admiration. About the only thing I had to worry about was making the mistake of walking under a falling rocket or mortar. That’s not even in the same league.I remember being at the 31st CSH (Combat Support Hospital) in Baghdad around midnight the night before Thanksgiving. As I walked down the halls I saw soldiers in the lobby and hallway, passing the time with the small talk of soldiers everywhere about home, cars, and girls. Almost all of them had terrible burns, a few were on artificial legs, and others showed the stitched up evidence of recent surgeries. There, America, are your heroes. Take time ever now and then to think about them and what they’ve given to our country. They had all done their duty, and I thought of Robert E. Lee’s observation on duty that “no man can do more, and no man should do less”.

Thank you, Jerry for all you have done for me. Thank you to all the men and women are are just doing a job for the boss. You are doing a great job and I’m proud of you.

And Paul Crume understood this, too. But he looks at it in yet another way:
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On this day, angels linger close at hand

By Paul Crume

This essay, first published on Christmas morning 1967, is considered one of the most appealing ever written by the late Paul Crume, whose "Big D" column appeared in The Dallas Morning News from 1952 until 1975.

A man wrote me not long ago and asked me what I thought of the theory of angels. I immediately told him that I am highly in favor of angels. As a matter of fact, I am scared to death of them.
Any adult human being with half sense, and some with more, knows that there are angels. If he has ever spent any period in loneliness, when the senses are forced in upon themselves, he has felt the wind from their beating wings and been overwhelmed with the sudden realization of the endless and gigantic dark that exists outside the little candle flame of human knowledge. He has prayed, not in the sense that he asked for something, but that he yielded himself.

Angels live daily at our very elbows, and so do demons, and most men at one time or another in their lives have yielded themselves to both and have lived to rejoice and rue their impulses. But the man who has once felt the beat of an angel's wing finds it easy to rejoice at the universe and at his fellow man. It does not happen to any man often, and too many of us dismiss it when it happens. I remember a time in my final days in college when the chinaberry trees were abloom and the air was sweet with spring blossoms and I stood still on the street, suddenly struck with the feeling of something that was an enormous promise and yet was no tangible promise at all.

And there was another night in a small boat when the moon was full and the distant headlands were dark but beautiful and we were lonely. The pull of a nameless emotion was so strong that it filled the atmosphere. The small boy within me cried. Psychiatrists will say that the angel in all this was really within me, not outside, but it makes no difference. There are angels inside us and angels outside, and the one inside is usually the quickest choked.
Francis Thompson said it better. He was a late 19th-century English poet who would put the current crop of hippies to shame. He was on pot all his life. His pad was always mean and was sometimes a park bench. He was a mental case and tubercular besides. He carried a fishing creel into which he dropped the poetry that was later to become immortal.

"The angels keep their ancient places," wrote Francis Thompson in protest. "Turn but a stone, and start a wing." He was lonely enough to be the constant associate of angels. There is an angel close to you this day. Merry Christmas, and I wish you well.

Silent Night

In December of 1914, at the beginning of WWI, an amazing thing happened. Somewhere along the borders of Belgium and France, peace broke out in the middle of a war. Historians call it the “Christmas Truce.” Along a 400 mile-long front, on either side of a hundred-yard wide No Man’s Land marked by barbed wires fences, inside the cold, wet muddy trenches, the soldiers stopped fighting, climbed out of the trenches and celebrated Christmas with each other.

It’s the most improbable thing to have happen yet it did. Men came home after the war to report what had happened to them. In various sections of the front lines different groups of men celebrated in different ways.

I've been reading all about it in a book by Stanley Weintraub called, "Silent Night." Several facts Weintraud give us make it easier to believe when you think about it. Both British and Germans shared a common belief and tradition of Christianity. Some of the Germans spoke a little English because they had either worked in England or in British-related businesses.

Four hundred miles of battle front is a huge area but since there were so many different ways of celebrating it appears that it wasn’t organized or planned. It simply happened.

In many sections of the front the truce began with a request to bring their dead in from the No Man’s Land, the hundred-yard section between the two fronts. Over the months entrenched in the frontline, bodies of the unlucky men trying to breech the line had accumulated and begun to rot. Each side wanted to give their comrades a decent burial. So they agreed to stop fighting long enough to let each side work in peace. Once the bodies were safely buried and no longer a visual reminder of what men can do to each other, it was tempting to delay a return to the shooting that had produced the corpses.

In one section of the front, German troops softly started singing “Still Nacht” and the British joined in with the English version of Silent Night. Then they began trading carols as the snow fell.

In another section, the bullets had slowed somewhat and a German soldier ran to the barbed wire fence separating them holding something over his head. The British watched in amazement at a man so daring. The longer they looked they realized the German had placed a small Christmas tree on the fence post. Many of the German soldiers had received trees from their families back home and were proud that the tannenbaum was Germany’s contribution to the Christmas celebration. After the soldier returned to his trench without harm, another came with his own tree, then another and another. Eventually the barbed wire along the front was lined with Christmas trees.

Food is important to wartime soldiers. And what one side lacked, apparently the other side was tired of. The British soldiers were only too happy to offer the marmalade they had grown tired of and the Germans rolled out two barrels of beer.

Tobacco was another traded item in still another section of the front. Each side had received a tin of tobacco from their monarch. The British were sent an ornate tin box in the name of Princess Mary containing cigarettes and chocolate. The German equivalent was a box of pipe tobacco and cigarettes from Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. The boxes became trades that offered unique souvenirs.

Another souvenir of the war soldiers wanted to take home was any ornament from the other side’s uniform. Missing buttons or belt buckles were small enough to explain away to their superior officers. They made a grand souvenir. Many times soldiers in battle cut them off dead enemies' uniforms to take home. This time, they could trade with a living soldier.

There were many more different incidents of a cessation to the violence over Christmas Eve and Day. Soccer games played in No Man’s Land. Jokes. Slaps on the back. Some even exchanged addresses.

On the day after Christmas, in one section of the front, in an almost resigned acknowledgement of what they were there for, one side put out a sign saying “Merry Christmas” and the other side followed with their own sign saying “Thank you.” Warning shots were fired into the air and the war resumed.

This what can happen when armies are able to see the things they share in common. This is what can happen when men are wet and cold and tired of being away from home, when they see their own faces across the barbed wire. This is what is possible in humanity. This is what is possible.

My Christmas prayer for our world this year is that somehow we would come to a truce like the men of 1914 did, even if for a brief time. It was an incredibly improbable thing to have happen in 1914. Couldn’t we dare to pray for it again? It’s good to remind ourselves that humanity was not created for this. The men on Christmas Eve 1914 knew this.

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Beaven and I are going back to Mississippi a couple of days after Christmas. In my absence next week, I’ll leave something special for Elizabeth to post.

If you have spent any time living in Dallas you know what Christmas morning brings. You probably look forward to it every year without realizing it. And then it shows up right on schedule and you realize it wouldn’t be Christmas without it. It’s the annual reprint of Paul Crume’s column on Angels.

Merry Christmas.

Maurine's Manger Scene

My dirty little secret today is that I haven’t decorated for Christmas yet and I’m tempted to not do anything at all. Beaven and I have turned into a couple of sloppy cave dwellers, like hermits, who only sporadically invite the outside world to see our cave. And the way this year’s Christmas schedule works out, nobody, including family, will see the inside of our cave until well after the holidays. Why bother? Why should I haul out all those boxes from storage just for Beaven and myself?

I did get a nativity scene in Guatemala this summer. I thought I’d add it to the regular scene I’ve put out since the girls were little. My dream is to re-create the manger scene one of the ladies in our church, Maurine Bickle, had for years and years. It was the largest and most unusual nativity I’ve ever seen in my life. She died a few years ago and I called her son to try to find out what happened to it. I hinted quite bluntly that he donate it to the church. But I’m afraid he’s stored it away in some cold outdoor storage building and we’ll never see it again. It was just a fascinating array of figurines, the likes of such you will never see anywhere else.

When Maurine moved into the retirement center she asked them if she could put it out for Christmas. Sure thing, they assured her and brought out a tiny little table. Everyone who knew Maurine laughs at this story. The retirement center eventually had to get out three full-size dining room tables to display it all. She had been adding to it for probably 40 years by inviting the children in her Sunday School class to bring something to include in the Christmas story. I loved going by her classroom at Christmas to see it.

There was Baby Jesus, of course. And Joseph and Mary. But that’s the extent of any limitations Maurine made on the Christmas story. Her nativity had more than three wise men. There was every kind of camel, lamb, and cow you could find as well as horses, pigs, chickens, geese and sheep. All sizes, shapes and colors. All made of ceramic, glass, plaster, plastic, wood and yarn. A whole army of shepherds; in fact, even a few green plastic army men. Certainly there was a heavenly host of angels. I spotted the bride and groom long since taken off the wedding cake as well as Fisher-Price play people and a couple of Weebles. In Maurine’s Christmas story, the whole world turned out to see the Messiah.

Every time I went in to look at it I learned some new theological tidbit. I’ll never forget the time I spotted a plastic snake. What an amazing world God created for us to think that the snake came to see the baby Jesus! One year, I found a tiny little pile of red cellophane and sticks. I asked Maurine what it was. “Well, a little campfire, of course. It got cold out there at night.”

Our youngest daughter, Emily, was lucky enough to be in Maurine’s Sunday School class when she was 3 years old. One Sunday that Christmas Emily came to the door of the classroom with a tiny little advent wreath made of Styrofoam and birthday candles. Maurine was quite adamant in her announcement, “Now, Mamas, you’ll need to watch this wreath carefully,” she said. “This candle will burn down real fast.” Which, naturally I failed to do until I looked in the living room to find my antique table was on fire. All the years since, I have treasured the deep charred spot in the middle of the table as a monument to Maurine’s energy, imagination and love, not to mention of my own stupidity.

I think that’s the things I’ll get out and decorate my house with. Even if nobody sees it I’ll enjoy having Maurine and the baby Jesus with us for a couple of weeks.

Freeway 101

I know now what my obituary will say. Or, at least, I have an idea of how I will go. It will be in a car trying to multi-task and doing a poor job of it.

I recently read the latest diet book by Oprah’s medical guru, Dr Oz. This is a different man than Oprah’s fitness guru or her personal chef, who have each written a book. But, you can bet anybody who is Oprah’s expert on any subject has just gotta have the straight scoop. So I read this book and took it to heart. Dr Oz says it’s not your weight that matters; it’s your waist size. Well, at this point I’m screwed no matter what. Any way you measure, by weight or by waist, I am in deep doo-doo. But this book told me that I just need a little work on my abs, is all, and Dr Oz assures me that once I’ve done that, I will have a long and healthy life. Something about muscle burning fat. It sounded like a plan to me.

So, in Dr Oz’s book he says you can do a lot of exercises right there in your car, driving down the road. Now, maybe Dr Oz meant in slow town-driving, maybe in five o’clock traffic or at red lights. But the problem is I do most of my driving on Interstate 30 going back and forth to Garland from our little home here in paradise. I spend very little time in five o’clock traffic now that I’ve retired and become peaceful.

Sunday night I decided I could do exercises there in the car on my way home from Garland. I figured out a really good workout, too. I tilted the seat way back, not really reclined to a sleeping position but tilted back enough that I had plenty of room for a perfect sit up right there in the car.

I was really proud of this stroke of brilliance….and I have to say I got in a lot of crunches and was starting to work up a sweat right there in the comfort of my own car. Then the phone rang.

The problem was that I was listening to my new iPod and I had the devil of a time figuring out how to turn the iPod off so I could answer the phone. I’m still a little new to the iPod. I just got it about a week ago but I was already hooked. I love the way I can design my own playlist to include all of my favorite music, which is an eclectic mixture of Big Band, Rock and Roll, Blue Grass and a little Christian music.

My first problem answering the phone was figuring out which pocket the iPod was in because I have just pockets and pockets stuffed with stuff. I’ve got my pedometer in one pocket so I can measure how far I’ve walked in a day. The pedometer doubles as a watch so while I may not know if I’ve walked enough that day I always know what time it is. Besides, with doing sit ups in the car I may not need to walk that much anymore.

Anyway, while I was trying to figure out which pocket the phone and the iPod were in I unbuckled my seat belt and then tore off one of the earpieces so I could talk on the phone should I ever find it, which was no guarantee since it was in another pocket and I wasn’t sure which one. Pulling out the earpiece did the trick and I didn’t have to worry any more about actually turning off the iPod. Then I started checking the other pockets for the phone but all I could come up with was my pen and an assortment of notes to myself.

All of this, mind you, still maintaining the 80 mph you need to go on a freeway to keep the trucks from running over you. Because, you know, nobody goes the speed limit on freeways anymore. Then I noticed I had 18-wheelers on either side of me. I think they might have pulled up when they noticed me doing my sit ups.

So, that is how I will go. I will be crushed between two 18-wheelers while I’m trying to answer the phone and disconnect my iPod while I’m doing my sit ups in the car.

“Jane Els was killed in a tragic accident driving down Interstate 30 the other day. She was crushed beyond recognition after being sandwiched between two 18-wheelers. Her iPod was still playing “Chattanooga Choo Choo” as the paramedics cut her lifeless body out of the car using the “jaws of life” which apparently this time did not live up to their lofty name. She is survived by her husband, Beaven, and two daughters who will spend the afternoon of her funeral fighting over her jewelry. She leaves behind many unfinished wood working projects, which her family will probably throw into the coffin with her. At her death, however, she had the beginnings of a great set of abs.”