A Quick Ride With Santa

Tonight, I took a ride with Santa. Our first stop was a church in Virginia. It was crowded with people, from the very young to the very old, who were there to celebrate the birthday of the Christ child. There was warmth, light, food, music and fellowship. Children dressed as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels and wise men sang and played in the certain knowledge of being loved and cared for. The misfortunate of the neighborhood had been invited to dinner and a food bank. It was easy to believe in the presence of God in this gathering. In the wink of an eye, we zipped across the Appalachian Mountains and into Harlen County, Kentucky. We visited a very small church in the middle of the mountains of the coal mining business. It was a wood frame church, hard to heat and to light. There was a palpable tiredness within the membership of the gathered congregation. Hands and faces were permanently tattooed with the blackness of coal and lined with hard labor and hard living. Snotty-nosed children shivered as they sang birthday welcome songs to the Babe of Bethlehem. There wasn't any food to spare for the occasion, but there was a big pot of hot coffee on top of the old wood stove. The joy in the knowledge of a living Christ child made it easy to know that God was even here in this almost forgotten place. Once again and very rapidly we took to the air. This time, we landed in a refugee camp just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. There, as Santa delivered very few presents, I held a very young girl-child who was dying of starvation and cholera. As the parents wept and their friends kept vigil, the Star of Bethlehem shone brightly in the sky above. That star, alone, seemed to provide the only proof that a loving God might be present as the child breathed her last breath, never having seen even her first birthday. Santa's laugh sounded almost hollow as we next visited the Darfur region of the Sudan. Almost all Christmas joy had left me as I helped to bury a mother who had been raped and murdered in front of her husband and children. I prayed over her grave, but I prayed alone. It was not possible for those families, living in constant fear and want, to believe that a God of love actually exists, no matter what they hear about Him sacrificing His own son. As dawn was drawing near, Santa asked if I had time to make one more quick stop before dropping me off at my home. Of course I agreed. We made a stop very near my home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The place to be visited was a one-bedroom apartment in a fairly shabby complex in a not so safe neighborhood. An extended family of 12 persons called the apartment home or at least were using it for shelter. The family appeared to be Hispanic. I couldn't tell by looking if they were in the United States legally or illegally, but it didn't make any difference to Santa. Three men in the family were the only ones able to find work. Two of them weren't at home this Christmas night because they only jobs they could find required them to be working. As Santa and I enjoyed a quick and graciously provided dinner of rice and beans made with gifted food from a local church food bank, the children eagerly shared with us what they were learning in school and at church. In return, we shared a few simple gifts that were accepted as if they were the crown jewels of England. As we left this family, they all wished us feliz navidad, merry Christmas, and it was clear that God, through Christ, lived in the hearts and lives of these people. In these little vignettes, I have actually visited both churches and have been in the apartment that I describe. Of course, I haven't been in Haiti or Darfur, but I've read of the terrible things happening in both of those places along with countless other places in this world. Do I want to change places? That's a silly question. Of course not. I like my life the way it is. What I would like is for the God that I love and who loves me to be more even handed. As my friend, Heather, pointed out to me not so very long ago, Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus. Even though Christ knew, absolutely knew, that He was going to raise Lazarus, He wept because of the pain suffered by those gathered to mourn the passing of Lazarus, their friend. I know that Christ joins me today in weeping for the people of the world who suffer. I just wish and pray that somehow, life could be kinder to them all.