gifts.
These opportunities may be disguised as plain old ordinary life or even seem like distractions. They are, however, invitations for us to be present with someone on their journey. When such moments emerge, it is up to us to see them (which requires paying attention) and to say yes to them.
Can you think of any moments like this to which you said yes?
Ones that you ignored or later regretted having missed?
What might keep us from seeing such opportunities? From saying yes?
Imperfect Offerings
“An entire generation is having to put an unnatural courage at the centre of compassion, where previous generations were simply compelled by kind hearts, human instincts and godly moments.” Whether we fear rejection, failure, or legal liability, many of us must overcome some fear in order to step out and give of ourselves. Many of us wait (and wait and wait) on finding just the right thing to do, give or say. We wait until we’re just a bit closer to good or perfect. The trick is that we must come as we are, before we feel ready. Because no one needs our perfection; they need our presence.
At the heart of it, what holds us back from offering or receiving comfort from others?
What keeps us from being present with and for others? Present in our own lives?
Is there an area of your life where you’d like to step out, take a risk, serve others, but you feel afraid or unprepared? What would happen if you took a chance and stepped out before you felt ready?
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
—Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Chapter 2: Nearly There
Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses.
I think it’s worth repeating.
Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses.
Think of all the books you’ve spent money on. Think of all the books you’ve borrowed. Think of all the books you were required to read in school. Think of all the books you’ve thumbed through, implied you’ve read, and truly want to read. Think of all the books you’ve ever heard about.
Is Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses on any of those lists?
I guessed not.
But don’t laugh. We might have all missed out on a treasure without it.
Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses is a Lutheran Sunday school songbook that was published by James R. Murray in 1887. Massachusetts born Murray was an army musician in the American Civil War who later became a piano teacher and, later still, a music publisher. He was also the one person with the wherewithal to include the song “Away in a Manger” among a selection of dainty songs for little lads and lasses, ultimately casting it into the North American mainstream. Likewise, Murray was the composer of one of the two popular melodies that accompany the song to this day.
Four hundred years prior, Martin Luther was busy forging a legacy as one of the most influential figures in Christian history, with a resumé that included Augustinian monk, ordained priest, scholar, professor, Bible translator and Protestant reformer. With more than enough adoration and esteem attached to his not-so-dainty legacy, a great many wanted to continuously add to it. Murray was among the many who were convinced that Luther had written “Away in a Manger” and printed this note alongside the lyrics and the subtitle “Luther’s Cradle Song” in his Sunday school songbook: “Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their children.”
Whether Luther did or did not write the lyrics for stanzas one and two will forever remain an earthly mystery. What is certain is that he did not write the third, and I would suggest most touching, verse.
However, credit for that is just as fuzzy. Some say it goes to an Iowa farm boy turned prolific hymn writer named Charles H. Gabriel. Gabriel, like Murray before him, also subscribed to the notion that Martin Luther had written the original double-stanza children’s song, and it’s told that he penned and added his own third verse in the 1892 publication Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs. Others insist that John T. McFarland wrote it in less than an hour when he was the Methodist Episcopal Church’s secretary of the board of Sunday schools in New York City.
Note to self: Sign everything.
Well, whoever wrote it, and however it got there, I sure am glad!
While “Away in a Manger” is not my favourite of all Christmas carols, the first line of the third verse is my favourite of all Christmas carol lines. There is a deep sentiment wrapped up in a prayer that I believe exposes the profound fullness of the Christmas story.
“Be near me, Lord Jesus.”
I was nervous the first few times I was invited to be Santa Claus beyond my friends’ backyards. It felt like a mighty big leap to take, transitioning from a silly voiceless outdoor mystery to an indoor face-to-face icon. And I couldn’t have seen the whole hospital thing coming in my wildest dreams. The truth is, I think the Claus thing would have come to a screeching halt for me on my first hospital visit if it hadn’t been for an adorable little girl, with a cherub face and a little fountain of hair atop her head, named Shandi.
It had been arranged that I would do a room-by-room visit in a Toronto hospital for the children who were not well enough to leave and would be spending Christmas there. Age-appropriate gifts had been arranged by the hospital staff, and all I had to do was quietly move between rooms with a few hushed ho-ho-hos and surprise each child with a preselected and wrapped gift from my bag. To go through the motions should have been a cakewalk. But it wasn’t.
While it is heart-rending to see children hooked up to apparatuses and connected to machines at any time, it’s heartbreaking to see it on Christmas Eve. Where one feels helpless looking at their sweet faces as a mere mortal, one feels ashamed as a would-be magical Claus. Each child was elated to see me, even if a number of them were forced to show it in shallow breaths. I just played the rookie bluff as best I could. But at every turn I was weak in the knees and certain I was in way over my head. I didn’t know any of their diagnoses or conditions. I just knew that little lads and lasses aren’t meant to be hooked up to beeping machines with rubber tubes on Christmas Eve.
And that was just the kids. Of course, the children were flanked by their adoring parents. I longed to make eye contact with them, but at every attempt longer than a few seconds I began to lose my footing as anything in the jolly category. Tears rolled down mommy and daddy faces as their children’s little hands stretched forward for toys that they should have been opening at home. In the end, I was forced to play the whole thing much colder than I should have, just so nobody would have to deal with the disappointment of a sad Santa.
Nurses! God bless nurses! Every nurse, in every land! God bless you!
They were extraordinary. I am not sure if nurses in hospitals are, or were, assigned Christmas Eve shifts or volunteer for them, but either way, I do know that when they are actually on them they are pulling double duty, also performing as saints. Watching
