Amaryllis
By Linda Helmich
January 12, 2024
Sometimes in life, though we have had a season of flourishing, we find ourselves in a dark place, all alone. We feel like a chopped off, rather fat, ugly bulb with hardly even a sign of life. “What’s the use?” we ask.
Still, maybe it won’t always be this way. Better hang on and see. We feel, and may look, quite unlovable, like an amaryllis bulb. Still, circumstances and people do change from time to time. After this season of darkness, something good may happen.
Someone may reach out to us in love and bring us into the world of light. Their care for us, even if it is just to water our sorry self, brings us back to life. We begin to grow, like the amaryllis, slow at first, but then at an astonishing rate. We regain our stature and bloom in beautiful ways, full of unexpected color and design, a delight for all to see. This is the hope of Christmas. Because Jesus came into this world, to live and die for us, His love brings the transformation we desperately need.
“I am the Light of the world,” He said, “and the water of life.” The amaryllis demonstrates God’s love for the world, found in His son, Jesus Christ. The amaryllis is a worthy Christmas tradition.
Christmas Magic
William L. Flood, MD
Four Mile
Have you ever seen a reindeer fly? I haven’t, but that won’t stop kids from looking.
I recently read a fun article in one of my pediatric journals. I enjoyed it from several angles. First, I am a parent, and Christmas has always been a magic time for my kids.
Second, I used to be an engineer, so numbers fascinate me. This article was full of them.
And last, when we were living on the island of Saipan, I got to play Santa Claus in an otherwise forgettable play, “Here’s Love.” (It was sure more fun than Scrooge, who I played in a previous play.)
The article analyzed the “facts” of Santa and his
flying reindeer.
It acknowledges that no one has yet seen a flying reindeer. On the other hand, there are several hundred thousand flying “things” out there yet to be classified, so who knows?
Then the article does some math. Out of the two-billion children on Earth, there may be about 400 million who believe in Santa Claus. With three-and-one-half children per home, and assuming at least one good child, that’s still over 100 million homes to visit!
Considering time zones and the Earth’s rotation, Santa has about 31 hours to work with. This gives him 1/1000 of a second per home to park, get down the chimney, fill the stockings, eat the snacks (especially chocolate), lay his finger beside his nose and get back to the sleigh for the next stop. That’s fast!
The article gets a bit cynical at this point. The author points out that with two pounds of presents per child (one medium Lego set), the sleigh will still weigh more than a fleet of ocean liners and need over 200,000 reindeer for power.
This “fleet” will need to travel at over 650 miles-per-second to make the trip in time. Air resistance and friction would vaporize the whole shebang in a twinkling.
Funny, after reading all these facts, I still believe in Christmas.
In the musical play, “Here’s Love,” Kris Kringle says: “That’s just it. Faith is believing in something when your common sense tells you not to.”
I remember watching my young son standing at the fence in a zoo. He was watching a herd of reindeer from Finland. He hoped if he waited, really quietly, the reindeer would fly, “just a little.” He still believed.
At intermission in “Here’s Love,” I took off my beard to cool off in the backstage bathroom. A young member of the audience saw me. “Dad!” he exclaimed. “I just saw Santa. And he can take off his hair!” Magic.
And I remember a long time ago, when my children were little and engaged in one of those “My daddy is better than your daddy” contests with a neighbor. One of mine delivered her best shot, “Well, my grandmother can take out her teeth!” Kids.
We adults can learn a lot from our children. About faith. About magic. About love.
Merry Christmas!
Remembering a Refugee Family 2025 Years Ago
Illene Pevec
Carbondale
“If it happened here
as it happened there…
If it happened now
as it happened then…
Who would have seen the miracle?
Who would have brought gifts?
Who would have taken Them in?”
William Kurelek, a Ukrainian immigrant to Canada, wrote those words when he was 12 in the 1930’s Depression. That Christmas season he had twelve dreams where he saw the Holy Family, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, in different places around Canada, from the Arctic to the BC fisherman’s hut to the natives of Manitoba to the Mennonites in Ontario. In each place the family sought shelter and found it, found warmth and kindness. His book, with paintings of his dreams and their stories, is “A Northern Nativity”.
My son’s second-grade teacher in Canada introduced her class and me to this beautiful book of a child’s spiritual awakening to the meaning of Christmas and the love that is the basis of the Christian faith, a love that comes from an awareness of the divine spark in each person, the love that unites humanity.
Let us remember that a Jewish family, Mary, Joseph and Jesus, fled persecution by King Herod, went into Egypt on a donkey and found refuge there as immigrants. We are in the days of Hanukkah, when Jewish people light candles to commemorate a miracle of oil lasting for eight nights in their temple, and Christians are celebrating the birth of a baby born in a stable who brought love as a gift to all human families. Let us not be the persecutors but the people who welcome those who need shelter.
I am grateful to the churches who are taking a stand, protecting the Holy Family in the sanctuary of their churches, and telling the ICE hooded men that this is a time and place of LOVE, not hate.