The
everlasting engine of life is rich in names — God, Father, Father/Mother, Love,
Spirit, terms of instinct in a
vocabulary almost extinct. Such are passwords, easily remembered, lifting lids
and opening books, raising curtains and unlocking gates. Try Jesus, try Mary,
try holy men and women from any continent or contingent, and hear the rewarding
click as the doors open, and we’re in heaven. It looks familiar. It is where we
were and where we are.
God is a
parent who does not do our homework or rig games for us. When I was a little
kid I used to visit my pal Harold Lind at his house, and sometimes his dad would
haul me into a game of checkers while Harold completed his chores. Chores he
set for himself ranged from writing in his diary to reading a short story
published in our daily newspaper. His dad beat me time after time. He never let
me win. He didn’t think his own kids or a visiting kid could learn how to live
if somebody cheated on their behalf.
So, I think,
with God, whose answer to a prayer may be, “I love you too much to do your
exercises for you while you just watch, wither and weaken.” God’s ratings do
not always measure up to expectations, and that is an odd blessing for
agnosticism.
One of the
first books I owned was called the Bible
Story Book, and it was on my bedside table when I was six years old. I was
supposed to read one story each night before turning in. I was also supposed to
fill in the blanks on a Lifebuoy Soap calendar to affirm fulfillment of
hygiene. I was more faithful to Lifebuoy than to the Bible Story Book, but I read some of the stories. This was before
television, and there was no radio in my bedroom, and there were some stirring
pictures in the book. There were David and his slingshot, Goliath and his
grimace, the Egyptians being drowned, a lion’s den and a fiery furnace. What
happened to Jesus was uglier than anything in a Saturday matinee serial.
The Christmas
story is one that everyone knows and loves, a story that affirms the presence
of God in a savage and brutal world in need of mercy, forgiveness and love. How
many of us look to God for mercy, forgiveness and love? But, it is God who
looks to us to practice mercy, forgiveness and love. God’s prayer is that we
will confess, convert and consecrate our minds and bodies.
That’s one of
the inexhaustible messages of Christmas, one that like most of the others
enlivens the dream of Merry Christmases.
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