Holidays - Seasons Greetings!

Yes, my child, Christmas is giving, in the name of Christ. But-Christmas is also receiving! Is that hard to understand? It shouldn’t be. What would you think of the Christmas “spirit” of a friend who wasn’t even grateful enough to thank you for a present? If he has the Christmas spirit at all, he will receive it with joy and gratitude and thanks, because of the love which prompted the gift. The Bible says that God so loved this world that He gave His only Son, and that “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God…” As many as received Him! When we understand that, we understand that receiving is even more important than giving, at Christmas!

Let me illustrate what I mean. Suppose a child had an overabundance of beautiful toys, and he saw a poor, ragged little fellow with no toys at all. He would feel sorry for the luckless youngster, and offer him one of the best toys he had, as a present. But-he says he doesn’t want it! He still looks unhappy, when he says it. So the benevolent one picks out another, and offers that, and that one is rejected. He tries several times, and finally offers him his favorite toy, the one he loves best, the one he really wanted to keep forever. The other looks at it for a moment, shrugs, and turns away. This would be too bad, wouldn’t it? This could have been a real Christmas for the boy, but he wouldn’t receive the gift…

Can you imagine how God feels when He offers us His only Son, and we reject Him, even crucify Him on a cross? You see, my child, to really receive Christmas you must receive Christ first; the rejoicing comes later…

What does it mean to receive Christ? It means to understand that He came into the world to save sinners, and that we are all sinners by nature. We need to be saved from our sinful natures, or, as the Bible says, to be “born again.” Or, if you will, “made over.” When we receive Christ and take Him into our lives and let Him make those lives over, then we receive the Supreme Gift, for He comes into our hearts through His Holy Spirit and we experience the gift that is Christmas, the joy of union with God, and peace on earth and good will toward men.

Christmas is not just a date on our calendar; it is a state of heart.

The folks who have the best time on December 25 are those who have received Him, and who give in remembrance of Him. Suppose we set up a different Christmas tree this year! Suppose we set one up in our hearts. Suppose the tree is Jesus Christ, the True Evergreen, and the Life Everlasting. Suppose we adorn this tree with the gifts He brings to those who accept Him-love, forgiveness, patience, hope, charity, peace, mercy, understanding, humility. Suppose we turn on the lights of this tree very brightly, and keep them on! If we do this, our “traditional” tree will take on a new and richer meaning.

Speaking of the Christmas tree-trees, you know, have been historically recognized as symbols of everlasting life. That is, no tree ever dies: it leaves new life behind it, in seed and acorn. Job says that “… there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again…” and we are told in the first Psalm that one who loves the Lord “shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water… “It is all symbolic of the rebirth of Christ in the human heart. Every time a repentant and seeking heart says, “I believe…” the King and Lord of all is born anew in the humble dwelling of the heart.

The Christ Child in us must be allowed to grow, and we allow Him to grow, like an everlasting tree as we, His branches, bear fruit fit for His Kingdom.

This, my child, is a wonderful mystery, but it happens. I have seen it, and experienced it…

The Bible says that the human heart is by nature deceitful, and desperately wicked. But Jesus wants His home there, so that His Spirit can change that heart. You know, when once I opened my heart to Christ in sincere faith, I was just like a little child seeing her first “Christmas tree.” All of a sudden everything around me looked new and beautiful and shining… I was like a new tree “planted by the rivers of water…” It was the crowning Christmas of my life.

An addition for one Christmas was Marion, our Scottish foster daughter who spent her first Yuletide with us. I shall never forget the glow of happiness on that little face as she helped trim the tree and opened her gifts. How that child relished oranges! Oranges are so plentiful in California that we are prone to take them for granted. But I do believe that child’s Yule tree was the one in our front yard, loaded with oranges!

Then came the Christmas in Chatsworth, with another new “little pixie” hanging ornaments on the tall tree in the den, and piping a little “sing-song” Korean rendition of “Silent Night” - little Debbie! She and Dodie wanted, and got, shiny red “trikes” and little baby dolls that cried very wee wet tears…

We had nine for breakfast that Christmas morning, around the huge, round oaken table, and of course, seven of them were too excited to eat! Tom and Barbara, Mindy and Candy, Grandma Smith, and “Uncle Son,” my brother Hillman, and Mammy and Grampy Slye came for dinner and rounded out the family, as well as five of our old “stand-by,” or “on-the-loose” friends-so the place was really jumping with joy. You need something like that, at Christmas; you need to share it with a crowd. The Bethlehem stable was crowded, you know: Christ was not born in obscurity.

As I watched little Debbie chatting happily with Dodie and busy with her toys, I felt a twinge of sadness for those countless other children in Korea, and I wished I might have them all here, too. But I thanked God that day for Dr. Bob Pierce and his World Vision, Inc., which makes Christmas really Christmas for those orphans of the storm by providing foster parents for them in America. Yes, Christmas is always it goes on, and on … in people like this Christmas is always.

One day we all took a ride on the ski lift on Mount Summit, riding in pairs in the little suspended chairs which scaled the mountain. The higher we got, the colder and more beautiful it became. Our ascent was very slow in comparison with the descent of those who went down on their skis, just under the cars in which we rode. What a parallel to life! To climb requires effort and persistence; to slide down, no effort at all…

At the top we jumped out of the chairs and ran into a warm “sky house” where we drank hot chocolate and warmed our toes at the big, old-fashioned, round iron stove. The children were delighted with the little snow-covered “Christmas trees” which we 0-zsaw on the way up-and there were so many! Roy said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have one like that for Christmas, with real snow on it?” I thought of the sixteenth verse of Psalm 147: “He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.”

Giving, Always, God is giving. Not just on one day do His gifts arrive, but always … constantly . . . day by day . . . hour by hour. … He causes Christmas to happen with the spectacle of little snow-covered trees on mountainsides, in August and July; He trims them with a color and a glory that make our hearts leap up as we behold them. He gives unstintingly and constantly of Christmas beauty to us all, if we have but eyes to see. . . .

So Christmas has been for me, so it has “grown and developed from my childhood days. So, I think, God intended it to be: an unfolding, growing lesson in love. And as I have grown, I have come to understand that this great love must be practiced not just on December 25, but every day in God’s year.

I have many wonderful Christmas memories, gathered as the years rolled by… Perhaps the loveliest is the one of the second and last “earth” Christmas of Robin, our little angel. I wanted so desperately to see her enjoy, understand and really catch the spirit of Christmas, and I hoped that our carefully chosen little gifts would help and please her. You know, she looked just as though she belonged on top of a beautiful, glimmering Christmas tree. Her nurse used to call her “angel,” and that Christmas day she really looked the part.

Robin was one of the greatest Christmas gifts of my life; she brought me into suffering and taught me to walk by faith with Christ through the deep waters to a new and clearer understanding of life. Through her I learned where abundant life is really to be-in the service of others through the Christ who lived, died and rose for all of us.

I remember the indescribable feeling of happiness as I watched Robin delightedly pound the little red piano that still sits on my window-sill … and I remember hearing a song in my heart…

You little blue-eyed angel, Heaven has sent you to me, you little blue-eyed angel, you belong on a Christmas tree.

Hair that is gold has my precious one, that little smile is warm as the sun you little blue-eyed angel, you belong on a Christmas tree. What a blessed Christmas experience that was! My soul grew much in understanding that day.

Then, the next Christmas, as we trimmed the tree for Cheryl, Linda, Dusty and our two “newest Rogerses,” Sandy and Dodie, I picked up a little Christmas-tree angel, and inwardly saw little Robin’s face. As I placed it on top of the tree, I suddenly knew that little Robin was very, very happy now and having a Christmas with the One who made it possible! Sandy and Dodie were ecstatic over the tree and their gifts, and we all felt warmly grateful to God for the two charming little strangers He had sent to take the place of our “angel unaware” ….

There was the usual Christmas turkey with my favorite Texas corn-bread dressing, marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, “ambrosia,” and fruit cake-the Christmas dinner of my childhood. “Daddy Roy” gifted me with an electric organ on Christmas Eve, and its soothing notes proved blessed therapy to a heart remembering a little blonde head missing around the tree. It seemed the other children “outdid themselves” to help make this Christmas happy for “Mom”-because they knew I needed help…

Children are “part and parcel” of Christmas… Think how wonderful it would be if childless couples would “borrow” some orphans for Christmas!

There came to my desk this week a letter from an Anglican clergyman who is now practicing the high calling in one of the more notable churches in eastern Quebec. The contents of the letter itself would be of slight interest here. Suffice it to say that the reverend gentleman had beer; delving into some local history and was querying us as to whether or not it might make an acceptable news story.

I am quite sure that the pastor doesn’t have any idea who I am, but to me, his name was one which I recognized instantly even though it is now nearly 25 years since I have seen him.

The incident which impressed him so firmly upon my memory took place when I was a boy in knee pants in a small town where this good man had just taken over a pulpit in our proud little Anglican church. He was young and full of Godly ambition. The congregation was staid and had been satisfied for a long, long time. The zeal of their new pastor was just a little hard for them to take to their cautious hearts.

The more tolerant of the parishioners reminded the others that he was young and that time cures nearly everything.

Then came the Christmas concert. The minister had worked a long time on the homegrown talent at his disposal and by adding his own acting genius here and there, he had rounded out a program which even the more cynical of his flock admitted to be good.

The more tolerant gave him an even greater credit. It was the best Anglican program they could ever remember, they said. It was almost as good as the program the Latter Day Saints put on.

(Whether they had just been born dramatic or whether theirs was an inspiration which came from on High the Latter Day Saints were always credited with having the best Christmas concert in town.)

But then just as the program was coming to its splendid conclusion and the pastor’s star was rising to a new height, he committed the tragic blunder which was to make him so vividly remembered through all the years after. When he came out in front of the curtains to make the little closing speech expected of pastors on such occasions, he admitted that there was no Santa Claus.

The pronouncement was not the burden of his speech, of course. It was something which came rather incidentally, and he hastily added the customary compensating talk about the spirit of Santa Claus which was indeed real and which was far more important than the little red fat man himself.

But the damage had been done. The church basement was filled to the furnace with youngsters of all ages that night, and they had all heard. The silence which took hold of their parents Was the silence of utter darkness.

“How could he?” someone near me whispered. “How could he be such a fool?”

And for years afterward, that moment of supreme honesty was the one thing which was always recalled whenever it became necessary to prove the young man incompetent or unworthy of continuing in their pulpit.

But the strangest fact of all, and the fact which I remember just as clearly as the great pronouncement itself, was that it was the parents who were so rudely shocked that night. There wasn’t a whimper from a child anywhere. I doubt if they were even surprised. And when in full Santa regalia, the village mayor trooped and whooped onto the stage a few minutes later their screams of delight were just as loud as those which had ever greeted any Santa, real or revealed, any time, anywhere.

It was a gusty afternoon in mid December when we first met Mr. Parkhurst, and the customary gray grime of the city streets had been magnificently gilded over with the warmth and brilliance of Christmas color. Mr. Parkhurst’s office was on a street where hurry perpetually ground at the sidewalks, but today’s hurry was spotted with laughter, and song bits and gaily wrapped parcels. There were the trademarks of Christmas too in the big man’s fine office, a radiant little tree made of some sort of synthetic fibre, a sign which said “Merry Christmas” with smart dignity, and a pile of the firm’s new calendars, all wrapped for giving.

Mr. Parkhurst rose and looked at us with that wary smile a shrewd businessman bestows when he is not sure whether his visitor has come to buy or to beg,

‘You’re advertising a farm for sale,” we explained.

“We’ve sold ours and we’re looking for another. We just-”

“Sit down! Sit down!” Mr. Parkhurst said, and the change in him was almost as bright as that in the street below. “Indeed I have a farm! One of the best in the county!”

Then he began to offer proof. The farm was I 50 acres.

It was on a good road. It was only two miles from town. The taxes were very reasonable, only $125 a year. There was at least $3,000 worth of hardwood timber just waiting for an energetic axeman on the place. The house had eight modern rooms. It was a big house, 36 by 23. The barn was a big one too, 80 by 38, metal roofed and solid as a rock.

“I sent a photographer out to get some pictures the other day,” Mr. Parkhurst said. “Here, have a look.”

In the pictures, the farm was quite an attractive one. Why was he selling then? Well, it was a matter of time, mostly. Mr. Parkhurst just didn’t have the time the place deserved. “I keep thinking that next year I’ll take a little time to enjoy it,” he said. “But next year is like tomorrow. It never comes.”

We asked a few questions that the photos couldn’t answer; what kind of fruit trees there were, how old, did the well ever run dry, was there a cistern, did the timberland have any swamp mixed in with it? We had a dozen such questions in mind but already one of Mr. Parkhurst’s secretaries was waiting with polite impatience. And he wasn’t too sure about many of these lesser points anyhow.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, getting up from his chair and moving ever so slightly toward the door, “why don’t you go out and see the place? Talk to my man Labarge. If it was any time but Christmas, I’d be glad to take you myself. But this holiday rush is just too much…”

“It’s not very nice to break in on a man without warning him,” we suggested. “Especially at Christmas. Do you think Mr. Labarge will mind?”

Mr. Parkhurst laughed easily. “He won’t care a bit. He’s a good sort. The easy-going type, you know. He’s not too bright perhaps, but then it isn’t the bright kind a man can get to run a farm for him these days, is it? You go see him. He’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

So a day or two later, we went out to see the farm and Pete Labarge. We found him in the stable, in the stall with a fat young bull. At first we thought he was holding the animal’s head, but he wasn’t. He had one hand in the automatic water bowl, and there he sat, patiently holding down the lever so the bowl would fill with water.

“Can’t figger whether this bull is just too stupid to learn to hold this lever down for his-self, or maybe he just wants my company. I have to do it for him every time, anyways. Hello. Not a bad day, eh?”

We traded a word or two about the weather, and then told Pete why we had come. If Pete felt any alarm, it didn’t show. He was tall, dark and nondescript, and his actions were no louder than his words.

“It’s sure a lovely place,” he said looking out of the stable door through the lazily falling snow. “It took a lot of broke backs to make a farm like this one.” He looked up at the whitewashed ceiling above us. “Take a look at those beams, for instance. As straight as the seats in the Presbyterian church. And they’re fitted together as if they had grown that way.”

Pete showed us the barn from stem to stern that morning, and he knew every timber in it. Then we went up to the solid old house, listened to Pete thump the walls and stomp the floors. “People just don’t build places like this no more,” he said. “People don’t see enough daylight no more to do a job like that.”

In the front room Pete’s ample-bosomed wife and four of his children were taking faded decorations from an old biscuit box and hanging them about the room. They were so absorbed by the task that they scarcely noticed us.

“Aha!” Pete said, surveying their work critically. “It’s good that you came right now. Because now I can hit two birds with one trip. We will go to the bush now, so you can see the timber. And while I’m there, I will cut the Christmas tree.”

The mention of the word Christmas tree sent the two younger Labarges rushing for their coats and overshoes. Pete helped the boy find his mitts and the girl tie her scarf, and then he exchanged his own barn shoes for his rubber boots. With the casual movement of a man long accustomed to family life, he upended each boot first and out of one came the baby’s rubber duck and a hockey puck. Then he looked at the dog which was thumping his tail expectantly against the leg of the stove. “O.K. You can come, too.”

Pete got to talking about the dog when we were wading down the lane toward the woods. “You’ll wonder how a man like me could even afford such a good-looking dog as that. Well, 1 can’t. Mr. Parkhurst bought him two, three years ago. He’s a pointer with a pedigree longer than your arm. Only Mr. Parkhurst never got around to breaking him in. 1 guess a partridge could roost on him without him caring. But you know what he likes to hunt at?”

We couldn’t guess.

“Grasshoppers. Come grasshopper season, that there dog just runs himself nuts pointing out grasshoppers for you. Of course Mr. Parkhurst don’t know that yet. He thinks he’s got a good dog. He is a good dog. 1 like him fine. Don’t bother a soul in the world but grasshoppers.”

The snow got a little deep down that lane to the woods and Pete soon had the little girl on his shoulders and the boy by one of his red mittens. But 1 don’t think Pete sat down because he was tired out. It was just that he could see no great need for hurry and there was a big rock handy. A rock that Pete knew personally.

“Would you know what a uranium rock happens to look like?” he asked. “1 always figgered maybe this here rock had some uranium in it. 1 mind once 1 sat down on it and when 1 got up, my watch was stopped. 1 always wondered after that.”

It was on that rock too, that he pointed out the rail fence that was as old as the farm. “I mind once sitting here and hearing some hounds hollering after a fox. And 1 looked up and there was Mr. Fox coming right along the fence, trotting along the top rails as if it wasn’t no trouble at all for him. I guess the hounds would have a hard time figuring that trail out.”

We did get back to the woods after a while and Pete showed us the stately stand of timber. “It’d be a shame to cut it,” he said a little wistfully. Then he and the children spent a quarter of an hour or so finding the right Christmas tree to take back. Pete didn’t cut it off at the ground but left some of the limbs still green below.

“You leave two good limbs still stickin’ on like that, and come another five years, you’ll have two new Christmas trees here. When you leave just a stump, that’s the end.”

We got tired on the way going back too, because now there was the beautiful burden of the tree. So we stopped not once, but several times while Pete’s children got their breath. “Did you ever hear the snow?” Pete asked us on one of those stops. “No sir, I don’t mean a crackle like the frost makes, but you hold your breath now and think about what’s in your ears, and you can hear it.”

We tried. The children tried. Everybody but the dog tried. And sure enough there was a sound. Or call it a sensation if you prefer, But it was as Pete declared: “You never get that feeling in your ears in the summertime.”

We got back to the house finally, and had a cup of steaming tea with the Labarges before we left. And we warmed ourselves by the old fashioned stove which Pete crammed with a wizened piece of pine root. “Took me and the horse an hour to get that root yanked loose, but there’s nothing that makes so cozy a fire as a hunk of wood that’s made you mad at it.”

And that was the last I’ve ever seen of Pete. It would be nice to say that we bought the farm and kept Pete on the pay roll, but we didn’t. I’m not sure whether it was the money which Mr. Parkhurst wanted, or whether it was that peculiar conviction I had that Mr. Parkhurst didn’t really have the right to sell that place. For if God, by any chance, records property deeds along with the deeds of humanity, I am sure that this wouldn’t be listed as Mr. Parkhurst’s farm at all. Any more than the grasshopper hound was his. Or the fox that ran the rail fence.

So you will say perhaps the morning was wasted. Mr. Parkhurst would concur with that view, I’m sure, and the figures would also support him. But the morning was not wasted, for I had enjoyed every quiet and unpretentious moment of it. And I had met a man I would never forget. I had met a man who probably hadn’t a dollar in the bank, and who would be one of the first to agree with his employer that he wasn’t too bright. But he knew the meaning of contentment as few of the rest of us know it. And as Mr. Parkhurst would never know it.

I looked up my old friend Wordsworth that evening, and never before had I so dearly understood what the great man was trying to say when he wrote:

The world is too much with us; late and soon} Getting and spending} we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours…

Mr. Parkhurst was no doubt a very brilliant man when it came to the getting and the spending. His lovely farm offered proof of that. He would probably conquer a good bit more of the world before the final bell. But it was his man Pete Labarge who had discovered how to be at peace with the world.

Mr. Parkhurst wasn’t offended when I called him and told him we had decided not to buy the farm. He wished me a Merry Christmas and when I returned the compliment, I meant it. And perhaps his Christmas will be merry because he will spend a lot of money on it, and work very hard to see that every part of it is complete.

But as for me and my house, the Christmas I would prefer would be the kind Pete Labarge will likely have.