A Silver Anniversary and the Gift of the Magi



Twenty-five years ago, on December 23, 1992, I was married to Tom Butler.  It was a very cold, snowy, St. Louis winter day but we were wrapped in the warmth of family, friends and the beauty of Christmas.  It was a good day.
Christmas is a happy time for me.  I love the theological message at the same time I enjoy the secularization of the holiday.  For those who find themselves too busy, too stressed, too involved in the trappings of Christmas, I offer the words of Isaiah 9: 2-7:  For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. These words remind us of the story, message and reason for Christmas. 
            It is hard for me to read those words without falling into the lilt of the music of Handel’s Messiah with which so many of us are familiar.  For many of us that music represents Christmas.  We are worldly people, so we experience Christmas in a worldly way.  I do not see this as a devaluation of the holiday. 
I love Christmas trees (pagan), Christmas cards and letters (Hallmark), Santa Claus (a Turkish monk), and all the glitter of wrapped gifts.   I enjoy reading aloud Clement Moore’s 1822 poem, “An Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas” which is now known simply as, “The Night Before Christmas.”   But even that is not my favorite Christmas story.  The Christmas story I love the most may also be the reason I wanted to be married at Christmas.  Love is love is love is love.   
When it comes to showing what Christmas can mean in a strictly worldly sense, you cannot beat William Sydney Porter’s timeless story, “The Gift of the Magi.”  Porter wrote under the name, “O’Henry” and was the master of the short story.  This much troubled, alcoholic and possibly criminal man was a master of many arts.  He could sing, draw, act and was certainly a skilled writer.  He is frequently compared to Guy de Maupassant in literary skill and use of the, “cosmic irony” in his story endings.  All of his skills come together in, “The Gift of the Magi.”
Here is the story of two hopelessly poor and hopelessly in love people who sell the only thing of value that each one owns in order to buy a gift for the other.  The wife, Della, sells her magnificent hair to get a watch fob for her husband’s heirloom watch.  Meanwhile, Jim has sold his watch to get Della a set of decorative combs for her hair.  The story ends with this grand message:
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. 
[To read the whole story go to: www.online-literature.com]
This story reminds us that Christmas represents what is in our hearts much more than what is of the world.  Christmas can be an aura, a hope, a thought of what lies ahead for both the Babe and this world.  We show all of this in worldly ways, because the world is what we have.  That can be enough if we try, very hard, to be the Magi.
For what it is worth, Tom has been my Magi. 
Merry Christmas, and share the faith. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Generation of Serfs

  On October 25, 1415, Henry V of England laid some serious hurt on the French at the Battle of Agincourt at Pas-de-Calais, France.   Part of the success of this campaign was due to Henry’s use of the longbow, but part of it also goes to the creative use of military indentures.   These legal contracts required all the English captains to provide specified amounts of men, material and time to the King’s cause.             An indenture was a document, written in duplicate and then torn along a jagged line, like little teeth ( dents ), in the paper.   One portion of the contract was in possession of each party and when the required conditions and period of service were fulfilled, the parts reunited, and the debt was considered paid.   Many of the people who first came to this country from England came as indentured servants, worked off their debt and became the backbone of the country.             Today we are creating a nation not of indentured servants, someone with a carefully
Read more

Our Beautiful Constitution and its Ugly Opponents

 The Constitution is our anchor of stability in a turbulent world!   We can withstand a bad President and a petulant Congress (for the short term, at least) because our Constitution both guides and limits.   If someone asked me to provide proof of a loving God, I would simply ask them how else so many geniuses in the matter of human governance could have been clustered together in the right time and place to create both our country and the means to govern it.    Our founding fathers had the vision to devise a way to not only govern themselves, but govern a country that they could not imagine, yet believed would prevail. The constitution of the United States is like a good parent.   It has allowed us to grow up as we have grown older, with the result that the United States of America is the oldest living democracy in the world.   The miracle of this document is that it lives, breathes and moves with the times.   The three branches of our government work together while standing alone
Read more

"You Didn't Build That:" Part I

Late in the day on Friday, July 13 th , President Obama mounted the stage of Historic Firehouse Number One in Roanoke , Virginia .   The room held around 800 people but it was hot and several people fainted.   In front of a carefully screened group of supporters he gave one of the most important speeches of his reelection campaign.    It was not meant to be a major speech.   That will come in the even more carefully scripted Convention Hall in Charlotte , North Carolina this September in front of adoring media and rabid political supporters.   But this speech in Roanoke is crucial to the 2012 election because on Friday, in Virginia , President Obama went off message.   Whether through error or hubris, he abandoned his script and spoke off the cuff.   And in so doing, he showed us the man behind the curtain.   The angry but controlled, insecure yet charismatic, market fearful, socialistically inclined man that Barrack Obama really is. I am speaking, of course, of the now famou
Read more