Santos

There is the idea that even a tiny amount of nurture can start to unravel neglect.

So I have been lighting the prayer candles and muddling through the spanish prayers on them.
Santa Clara (always pictured with a lantern), ángel de la guarda (usually huge and beautiful in the paintings), La Virgin de Guadalupe (The Mother of Mexican Identity) stand proudly on the bookshelf and I sometimes think they are glowing even when they aren't on fire which I think means that I believe those candles are helping--no matter what.

As you may know today is St. Nicholas Day. I have a friend who has never had a real Christmas Tree. He admitted recently that there were years when his father simply lit a Santa Candle and called it good.

And that got me thinking...

There is a man in our congregation who spends every Sunday of the year looking eerily like Santa Claus in a choir robe. He has been known to dress up like St. Nicholas upon request and carry a basket of candy canes around during coffee hour.

As annoying as these holidays are I can't help but tell you that the story of today's Christmas miracle (yes, I suppose I do believe in Christmas Miracles even if I hate Christmas--I really like miracles) is about him.

During the children's word Pr. Bev dressed one of the acolytes in a glowing red robe and satin costume mitre. She explained the way Bishop Nicholas of Turkey snuck gold coins into stockings hung out to dry so that even the poorest children of the fourth century underworld wouldn't have to go hungry on his watch. She then led all these postmodern, anti-traditional, sufficiently clothed and fed children to the Narthex where they each abandoned one shoe, just to see what would happen.
All those kids in sock and shoe marched back into service, across icy December sanctuary tile and then eventually up to the cushy purple carpet around the altar. I have to admit, they seemed relieved to finally be on the polyester weave and they knelt at the communion rail with their families as if celebrating Eucharist insufficiently clad on the coldest day of the year was, if not the most familiar or holiest way, then at least the most reminiscent-of-snacks-at-home way to deal with the host.

Just before the benediction the children were invited to stand around the advent wreath one last time before bolting out the double doors to retrieve solo sneakers and lonely patten leather. Pr. Hoffman told them the light from the wreath must be carried out into the neighborhood and who better to carry it than the half-shod? He lit two scrawny white candles from the two giant blue tapers on the wreath and handed them to acolyte line leaders.

I scooped up a tiny four year old and we both pointed our index fingers in this little light of mine fashion. We began the recession and I heard the benediction through the speakers so I used my light to cross her, in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit as her tiny shoeless foot bounced against my thigh.
I thought of casual worship, and how easily one shoe is so often lost in a closet. I thought of cold toes and Mother Goose's Diddle Diddle Dumpling and how often I slept with socks on because I was cold and lonely in bed, even as a child. I thought of the rare luxury of warm extremities in my childhood and the pain of frostbite. I remembered the sight of my great Aunt Hett's foot: missing the big toe. I knew these children felt lopsided and vulnerable and thought of desperate parents hoping against hope that their son had miraculously changed his socks for the first time this week.

When I finally looked up toward the Narthex door, I saw him.

Saint Nicholas stood there, large as life under the florescent lights, wearing the robe and mitre we had seen earlier on one of our favorite 9 year olds. I noticed his face, red and a little tense but not angry. He seemed to sigh, or almost heave and then rested his forehead, just for a moment along the curve of his bamboo shepherd's crook and clenched his eyes closed in a long blinking moment. He was regal but surprisingly emotional and it dawned on me that the sight of the children bearing these little index finger lights, coming at him reverently rather than wildly, sure of our purpose and pomp, in awe of his very existence and trusting in his benevolence and existence, hoping he was real and generous... it must have been overwhelming to see belief wash over those little faces.

He seemed to clench back tears and whether any actually fell I will never be mean enough to ask. I don't need to know about that because what I do know is this: it made perfect sense that he would cry at the sight of us. It made perfect sense that we meant that much to him. It made sense. As we came near to him with pure adoration in our eyes he seemed to feel the weight of our hopes and his hopes for us. It made sense that something in him would release and he would be overcome with emotion.

I leaned into the little bird alighted in my arms and told her, "There he is. Do you see him? I think he is feeling a lot of feeling right now because he sees us."
She looked up into my face and filled the space between us: proclaiming in a voice equal to that with which the official benediction had been offered, she let out the most confident little "Okay!" I have ever heard.

There is just something about Saints, especially Nicholas. There is something to be said for the way we light candles in their honor or under their portraits and raise a firey hope toward them. We point our petitions or best efforts in their direction, we march toward them in stocking feet and hope they will look down on us with tears in their eyes and be overcome with compassion and holy desire for what it means that we are approaching.

So if you still have that Santa Candle, go ahead and light that motherfucker up, give the jolly bastard something to smile about, light a fire in his belly because even the tiniest movement toward an adulterated version of Holiday Hope or Sacrament can move something inside you to remember the way all this mess was started so beautifully long ago.

And then there is this:
all these seasonal greening (decking the halls with boughs of holly and all that rot we are supposed to do this week) are really based on ancient Druid-derived, pagan rituals. Yule logs, Christmas Trees and Wreathes garner their status from the same traditions that taught us to plant the Yew and Holly Trees strategically around the church property to fend off evil. There are things we do this time of year even if we don't know why and it can really suck ass. But putting ourselves through the motions is bearable if we look for hope in the details (notice the smell of the cedar boughs, the sap on the pinecone stem, the bits of bark the yule log sheds, hope the holly berries don't bleed even for all their nestling among the prickly leaves, listen for the sound of needles falling off the dried out tree we dragged into the house). It might be all we can manage so it has to count for something.