Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy: A Christmas Message

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” Isaiah 9:2

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The house is quiet. The hectic pace is fading. The cascade of catalogues is easing into digital solicitations. Christmas is nigh.

The cell vibrates. The Smithfield Ham Co. emails, “Last chance to get your smoked pig.” Following closely is Hewlett-Packard’s print cartridge supplication, “Act Today!” My delete button acts.

Through the window sunbeams cast shards of sunset refractions on a bloated bunch of bills. My, what good tidings they proclaim! I imagine them bursting spontaneously into flames. I think, now that’s real comfort and joy. Unfortunately, they’re evidence of a shopper out of control.

I contemplate how the concept of ‘good tidings of comfort and joy’ might appear in reality. I wonder. Star-gazing shepherds once wondered, too. But I get nowhere. The subconscious resurrects a poem by T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men. He mused, “Between the Idea and the Reality falls the Shadow.” I think of a parallel universe.

A few days remain until the Idea becomes this year’s Reality. Many are falling into the Shadow of manic last-minute shoppers, those who are succumbing to the eleventh-hour urgency to spend themselves into poverty. Is this the essence of Christmas?

At lunch I overhear a man tell his wife, “OK, here’s my last $30…see how far it’ll take us.” She grabs the money, leaps from the table and exclaims, “I’ll be at Wal-Mart.” He looks nauseous and stares at his uneaten chicken. Is he thinking ‘good tidings of comfort and joy?’ I think not.

In our haste, the essence of Christmas becomes vague. Bound by tradition, consumed by commercialism, we rush about in the Shadow of preparation. We ignore the deeper aspects of the Christmas season which ‘good tidings of comfort and joy’ proclaim. Is this concept plausible?

I try, but the secret of this Scriptural concept of comfort and joy eludes me. It falls into multiple shadows within the Shadow. It’s a ghost. I can’t grasp it. I let go, wondering if it will find me.

Last year we showed some restraint and purchased a 5-foot Christmas tree. We sat it atop a long, tall table. It appeared from outside to be tall, but in reality it was small. It was an easier set-up than the gigantic ones. Plus, it was a pleasure to decorate. Ah, Yes, finally some comfort and joy. Lighting it was easy. No spousal disagreements. More comfort and joy. It appeared as one single lighted evergreen, glowing resplendently in the darkness. Our best tree yet, we agreed…comfort and joy.

Today I crawl out of bed at 5:00 AM. There are few distractions in the strong, silent hours of the early morning. Even the dogs remain asleep. With a cup of coffee, I sit surrounded in total darkness, except for the lighted Christmas tree. Thoughts of thanksgiving circulate in my mind, remembrances of friends, of family Christmases, blessings of life, of comfort and joy. Wait…has it finally found me?

Christmas has many points of light. When frenetic activity ceases, then we can focus on the points of light that best represent the essence of Christmas to each of us. Sitting in the comfort of home, the Essence becomes less the Shadow and more the Reality. The bones of the concept of comfort and joy take on flesh and come to life.

In five days Christmas will dawn. The Idea will again become the Reality, and the Shadow will fade into the Light of a new day. But Christmas Reality is just the birth of another Idea that awaits its own Reality. The miracle of Scripture, “…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” will live again.

Today, as the sunrise drives back the darkness, the house becomes alive again. I remember the verse, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

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Comfort and joy? Simply ours for the receiving! Perhaps it’s fitting that we boldly join with the ‘merry gentlemen of yore’ as they sing, “O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, O, tidings of comfort and joy.”

Merry Christmas to all.

Bud Hearn
December 20, 2013

A Letter to Santa

“Some say, ‘Seeing is Believing’…but I say, ‘Believing is Seeing.’”
Dewitt Jones, Photographer, National Geographic Magazine

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Santa Claus
North Pole
December 12, 2013

Dear Santa:

Where do I begin? It’s been a long time since I wrote to you. It was 1950. I was 8 years old. I accused you of being fat, a fraud, a trickster, running a nefarious scheme and working illegal immigrant elves without green cards. I was dumb then.

My apology may seem hollow…what can I plead? Guilty by reason of insanity? You’ve heard all that. Besides, I know you’re busy. So many requests, so little time. But, trust me, I’m concerned about global warming. Are your headquarters really melting? We’re spending enormous sums to keep you in business.

I’m nostalgic when remembering the letters I sent. My brother and I tried to figure out how you could make those toys and deliver them all on one night in a sled. Our house had no chimney. How did you get in? Obviously somehow, since the milk and cookies were always missing in the morning.

I remember the letter about the red bike. How did you get it into the house? Yet, there it was. I believed in those days, because seeing is believing to a child. I can’t recall everything I asked for, especially clothes. Somehow you knew my exact size. They always fit.

Do you remember the tiny trucks, tractors and cars you once left? Crawling in the grit of our back yard, we became engineers and road builders . We constructed small freeways, built small stick cities. We fantasized being travelers, visiting places of intrigue far beyond our small hick town. Guess what? It came to pass. You knew it would, didn’t you?

Remember the Daisy lever-action BB rifles you gave us? The toy soldiers? We became warriors, real and imagined. Once we played ‘real’ army, drew sides, fought battles. Our parents took us to the woodshed for that.

Remember those ‘harmless’ pea shooters? Listen, small boys can fashion anything into some kind of a weapon. We amused ourselves in the movie theater until the owner began to bodily search us and confiscate our artillery.

Oh, the chemistry sets! The house reeked of sulfur for weeks. How ‘bout the erector kits? Parts were sucked up by the vacuum, causing great consternation with Mama. We became Monopoly tycoons. We still pretend to be. Unfortunately your model airplanes were shoddy. They never lasted long. Neither did my pilot’s license.

The fireworks were the best. Thanks for trusting us…no directions, no warnings, no rules. We were small-town terrorists. Everything was fair game…cherry bombs exploded, empty cans soared, mailboxes ripped apart. Fence posts were shattered. TNT bombs rocked passing cars. Roman candles set the sedge field behind our house on fire. Worse than the whipping we got, our bamboo fort burned to the ground.

But we have missed you. Age has enlightened us about the mystique of Christmas. It’s a time of great expectation, of anticipation, and of surprises…and endless discussions of who you are and how you always know everything.

We were told that “believing is receiving.” Somehow, in spite of our doubt, it all came to pass. Santa, we need a renewal of that spirit!

The years passed. We grew up and moved on. Our toys got bigger. We forgot about you, but thankfully you didn’t forget about us. So, belatedly I write to thank you for your faithfulness. While we still don’t totally understand it, yet we believe it… faith may be the miracle of Christmas.

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Soon children , young and old, will attempt to resolve the enigma of Christmas… “Seeing is Believing, or Believing is Seeing?” Convince us again, Santa…and keep eatin’ the cookies!

Repentantly yours,

Bud Hearn

PS: This may be a strange question, but are you related to Jesus? Just wondering.

The Hot Breath of Christmas

It’s happening again...the hot breath of Christmas breathes down our necks like fire. Tempers get testy. Time eats up our hours faster than a politician asking for money. The plague of not- enough cash consumes our checkbooks. Visa elves work overtime. Platoons of catalogs clog our mail boxes. So many choices…who can decide? The hot breath blows.

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It starts around late September. This year I hear a miniature Rudolph singing its tune, testing the waters in Walgreens. It winks at me. I detect a tiny camera implanted in its eye, ostensibly there to record my response. Spy cameras are everywhere. No one’s safe. Be careful of where you scratch yourself.

I chew the sugar out of some Dentyne and stick a wad over the lens. Alarms go off. A little fat man runs out. It’s his job to monitor the effectiveness of Rudolf. Marketing schemes now use spyware. Your money’s not safe. If not the shylocks, it’s inflation. You can’t win.

This year they’re using external stimuli to incite cravings. Potpourri with hot chocolate scents tease our noses. Willie Wonka lives on. Marshmallow Santas with big grins stand erect, reminding us of holiday cheer.

Cheer? Did I just write that? No, it’s ‘Holiday Assault.’ The music, the music. In stores it blasts holes in our brains. How long will Jingle Bells be inflicted upon us in 81 degree weather? The hot breath blows.

The Politically Correct Police are active again this year. They’re posing as Obamacare ‘negotiators,’ enforcing the nomenclature of Christmas. We must refer to it as ‘holiday.’ Religious references now violate civil rights. Punishment is harsh, administered without protection of habeas corpus.

Violators are chained, herded into dank rail boxcars and shipped off to hard-labor camps in the cotton-patch gulag near Vidalia. Blaring holiday music brainwashes the perpetuators. It’s heavy on Elvis’ Blue Christmas and Burl Ives’ Holly Jolly Christmas. All allusions to religious icons must be renounced. To be released one must recite perfectly from memory one hundred times, “T’was the Night Before Christmas.”

It wasn’t always this way. Before the advent of Amazon.com, Christmas was pleasant. We were innocent then. We actually believed in a jolly fat man with a white beard called Santa Claus who lived at the North Pole. Also, that he rewarded good little boys and girls. Recently I discovered a letter written to him when I was eight. My mother had saved it. It may be a clue to why Santa shorted me on some items:

“Dear Santy, I am a good boy. I brush my teeth today. I wash my feet. I eat my spinach. Now, bring me a bike so I can leave home and a BB gun so I can shoot my friend Billy. And forget my little brother. He is stupid. Signed, your friend. PS, you are fat, so don’t eat all the cookies.” (The hot breath of Christmas scorched me that year!)

Those were the days. We had real Christmas trees of reasonable size, not the flocked, store-bought ones. We decorated them with lights that had colored bubbles going up and down. They still mesmerize me.

Over time tradition changed…bigger got better. We bought fourteen foot trees. They took a week to decorate and even longer to dispose of. Truck-loads of presents looked miniscule beneath them.

Alas, like our parents, we get older, and the trees get smaller until they sit on coffee tables by the fire place. Scattered underneath are now bags of nuts—brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans and others of unknown origin dating from the Indian pogroms of the 19th century.

Shopping has changed, too. Online beats fighting the mall frenzy. But it lacks the spectacle of people-watching. One evening a couple of years ago I walked out of Neiman’s in an Atlanta mall. A lingerie shop was next door. A crowd of old men clutching small bags were gathered in front of the plate glass windows. I stopped to observe.

The clerks were changing out the female manikins with lacey unmentionables. Heavy breathing hummed to the mall music of Joy to the World. The crowd grew. The energy was intense. I think I know what their letters to Santa might have said. And I’m sure they were disappointed! Sometimes the hot breath of Christmas blows cold!

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This year I’m giving my wife a gift that keeps on giving…a life-sized bust of me, carved from an ancient cypress log by a boy in Hoboken. It should be a real scorcher!

Bud Hearn
December 6, 2013