Footprints in the Sand

I came across this little story about forty years ago, when I was returning to the Christian faith after a long period of agosticism.  It meant a lot to me then.  It means even more now, looking back across the years.  

There are things you can't really understand until you have lived a long life, travelled a long way, loved much and lost much.  And then you see the footprints.  Thanks be to God.

Click to enlarge.

And in the wilderness (as thou hast seen) the Lord thy God hath carried thee, as a man is wont to carry his little son, all the way that you have come, until you came to this place.

--Deuteronomy 1:31 (Douay)

-----

Merry Christmas 2022

Madonna and Child by Il Sassoferrato, 1674. 

Another Christmas has arrived, another year has passed.  When I was a little boy, it seemed that Christmas took forever to get here, and the wait was awful.  Now it seems more and more that Christmases just fly by, like transit stops, and are gone before you have time to register the fact.

But amid all the changes and chances of this frantic modern world, Christmas endures as a fixed point in everyone's life, even for non-believers, and its traditions are remarkably steadfast:  the Christmas tree loaded with decorations and lights, presents wrapped in all manner of glittering ways, lights in the windows and on the roof, a gargantuan feast of all sorts of delicacies that "we always have" at this time, and for most folks, a houseful of family and friends, all ages, at least for Christmas dinner.  It has been said that "you can't go home again," and in a certain sense that is very true; but even so, Christmas remains the one day of the year that you just must "go home again," even if you don't particularly want to.  And, sadly, some people don't.  For others, there is no longer any "home" to go to.

But for most, Christmas dinner is a love feast, a few hours of merriment, remembrance, and affection, a joyful reconnection with the people we love most.  In Christian terms, it typifies at the family table the Feast of the Incarnation that we celebrate in church - or would, if our infirmities did not prevent us from doing so.  That magnum mysterium - God becoming a man - a baby - born to a human mother, not in a palace but in a stable full of animals and all their smells - with not even a cradle to lie in, but a manger - a feed trough, we might say - the great humility and tender love of the Creator for his creatures, shown in the humblest possible circumstances.  In the golden words of the Communion Prayer, which means so much to me (emphasis mine):

Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us

for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become

subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus

Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human

nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

A breathtaking thought!  People around the world worship many gods, but I know of no other religion which proclaims that God Himself became man and dwelt among us.  And not to lord it over us or live in royal state, but to fail miserably, as the world accounts failure, abandoned by his friends and condemned to a brutal death, as the prayer I just quoted continues:

He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself,

in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole

world.

And so death was not the end of the story, but the beginning - the divine paradox at work here is rather typical of God, actually:  the first shall be last, and the last shall be first, and so on.  And from that inglorious end, from that glorious beginning, countless millions of believers have drawn comfort and hope in every sort of adversity, and strength to do good works of all sorts at all times and places; to spend their lives in loving, humble service to God and their neighbors, according to the light they had.

A humble faith gives meaning and purpose to even the most obscure life.  Of course, not every Christian life is a successful one - but by Our Lord's own example, we may understand that what seems a useless failure to worldly eyes is perhaps not quite so worthless in the sight of Heaven.  I was struck by something the dear old Queen said in one of her recent Christmas broadcasts, which appears on the sidebar of my blog, and has become a light in my heart:

We cannot all do great things; 

but we can do small things with great love.

To which I would add, Keep on; do what you can.  Our small efforts may not seem like much in the world's eyes or in the scheme of the universe; but He whose eye is on the sparrow will surely value them at a higher rate, if done for love's sake.  Because that is what the Christian religion is all about:  God is Love.  The love of parent and child; of brothers and sisters; of spouses and neighbors and friends; of all mankind, rich and poor, high and low alike; the Love that moves the stars, as the poet says.

That is what Christmas means to me:  the remembrance of a profound act of love by God for us foolish, faithless, selfish human beings, which gave us the means of grace in this life and the hope of glory in the next.  Even if you do not believe the story is true - and I do not say anyone must - you can still, I hope, appreciate it as a magnificent piece of poetry, a feast for the soul, and a light in the darkness, which this rough old world is always in need of.  We would do well to keep the feast in our hearts all the year through.

---oooOooo---

Well, there's your Christmas sermon in case you don't make it to midnight mass.  But having gotten that off my chest, I wish a very Merry Christmas to Tim, Frank, Davis, and all my other truckbuddies - God bless us, every one!

Our new 7.5-foot tree (cost only $25), with a rotating star
 full of rainbow-colored lights.

Our happy little hacienda in a rainbow of colored lights; the pic does not convey the real beauty.  All of these new-fangled lights are quite bright and distinct from one another, though they appear to blur together in the photo.  Some of them in the windows and around the eaves twinkle.

P. S. - Go hear Frank's very talented niece singing "O Holy Night."

-----

Today's Quote

From Mere Christianity (1952), Chapter 9, by C. S. Lewis, emphasis mine:

Love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.

I pointed out in the chapter on Forgiveness that our love for ourselves does not mean that we like ourselves. It means that we wish our own good. In the same way, Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbors is quite a different thing from liking or affection. We 'like' or are 'fond of' some people, and not of others. It is important to understand that this natural 'liking' is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than your likes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact. But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous. . . .

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.

 There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his 'gratitude', you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) 

But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

-------

Note:  C. S. Lewis was, in a way, my spiritual mentor.  I came to the Episcopal Church as an adult, and was confirmed after a short, perfunctory course in the fundamentals; but I wanted more guidance.  I had already come across some of Lewis’s writings, so I bought up most of his non-fiction books, perhaps a dozen, and read and re-read them for years.  His keen insight and intellectual perspective, along with good humor and humility, gave me the spiritual roots I needed in that seedling period.

Sadly, I have not been to church for the better part of two decades now, for very good reasons.  But my faith goes on.

-----