Charley Honey - Remarkable Stories of the Christmas Season

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/12/stories_of_the_christmas_seaso.html

Published: Saturday, December 24, 2011, 6:47 AM

Updated: Saturday, December 24, 2011, 12:51 PM

By Charley Honey | The Grand Rapids PressThe Grand Rapids Press

A remarkable man passed away three weeks ago, though you probably didn’t mark his passing. His name was Fred Ritsema. Mr. Ritsema was not a newsmaker. But he once told me a Christmas story that was, of the many I have heard over the years, the most remarkable.

He returned home from World War II on a Friday. The following Monday, he stuck out his thumb on Chicago Drive SW to hitchhike to Australia, where he’d met Edna May Shute at a dance. Nearly three months of trains, trucks and steamers later, he showed up at her doorstep on Christmas Eve 1945. They married and came back to Grand Rapids, where they lived a good, non-newsmaking life.

“Jesus, Heavenly Father, bring us together in heaven once more, unending,” read his final prayer in his obituary.

Now that’s what I call true love, the kind that inspires songs crooned over an old radio while Mom and Dad dance around the living room. Ardent, devoted, sacrificial love. A Christmas kind of love.

My dad’s story

Different story, different man, same kind of love: Christmas Eve, early 1950s. My folks have just made the two-hour drive from Toledo to my grandparents’ house in Detroit. Hugs and kisses, kids wide-eyed, taking in the old-fashioned tree and dishes of candy. Secretly, my folks unpack our gifts.

Uh-oh, no BB gun. My brother Mike’s biggest present, missing in action. I don’t know if it was a Red Ryder, but it definitely could put your eye out. That Christmas, Mike wanted it more than anything in the world.

So, after we kids are tucked in, Dad gets in the car, drives back to Toledo, gets the gun, drives back to Detroit. Early Christmas morning, Mike gleefully opens his gift. Dad manages a bleary-eyed smile.

[Insert here your favorite family story of Christmas craziness. Crazy distances traversed, church pageants gone awry, 2 a.m. runs to Meijer for batteries. All because families love each other, and because Christians love this certain baby who showed up in a box of straw.]

Mary’s story

The latter event had been preceded by a long trek to Bethlehem, a pretty crazy hike for a pregnant teenager. But Mary had been assured by an angel, so Scripture says: Fear not, God favors you, and nothing’s impossible with God. OK then, says Mary. Whatever you say, angel.

Her ready acceptance of this rather spooky news set the pattern for all crazy Christmases to come. The unexpected happens, things change, the world turns upside down. And the angels say, fear not.

My family’s loss

Christmas changed in a big way for my family this year, back in July. That’s when my mother, a rather boisterous angel in her own right, left this life. But that was just the beginning.

Seven weeks later, Dad’s legs went out from under him. Spinal stenosis had finally caught up, choking off his walking nerves. Still deep in grief and in no particular mood to battle, he went under the knife.

This is when God and his angels really went to work — just as they had in Mom’s heart surgery 10 years before — through the skilled hands and caring hearts of physicians and caregivers.

The surgery went off without a hitch, the doc coolly clearing backbone from nerve while we kids sweated bullets. Then followed three weeks of rehab at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, where small miracles were performed on Dad’s 89-year-old body, and six weeks at Clark on Keller Lake, a United Methodist assisted-living facility where the caring staff and autumn leaves healed his spirit.

The angels throughout this stretch were way too many to fit on the head of a pin or in a newspaper column. At Mary Free Bed, therapists cheerfully pushed him onto his feet with help from a really cool walker, doctors expertly guided his recovery, nurses shamelessly babied him, a psychologist listened to his broken heart and social workers held his hand every painful step of the way. One particular social worker close to my heart brought him yogurt and his morning paper.

At Clark, caring nurses and aides attended to his every need, cooks prepared delicious meals, friendly residents chatted with him about their respective journeys into walkers and wheelchairs. Meanwhile, back home, neighbors watched the house and watered the plants to prepare for his return.

Dad came home in early November, driven by my brother who wouldn’t touch a BB gun now if you paid him. He stayed with Dad for a month, I stayed for a week, and now my sister is home for several months. Mom’s special chair is empty, but her spirit still dances through the house.

Dad has accepted her passing bravely though sorrowfully. Nothing can ever be the same, and this sure isn’t the Christmas we expected. But it is Christmas nevertheless, and we will celebrate it in a new way.

And all these angels in the wings whisper, “Fear not.”

 

 

Email Charles Honey: honeycharlesm@gmail.com


 

5 Myths of Christmas

Confusion Regarding the Yuletide is Common

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2011/12/16/20111216christmas-myths-martin.html

by James Martin

posted Dec. 24, 2011 05:10 PM

No matter your religious beliefs -- whether you're devout, doubtful or downright atheist -- you're probably familiar with the Christmas story.

But its history, significance and traditions are sometimes misunderstood. Let's clarify what the yuletide is all about by examining five myths.

1. Christmas is the most important Christian holiday.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard Van Honthorst, 1622

For all the cards sent and trees decorated -- to say nothing of all the Nativity scenes displayed -- Christmas is not the most important date on the Christian calendar.

Easter, the day on which Christians believe Christ rose from the dead, has more religious significance than does Dec. 25. Christ's Resurrection means not just that one man conquered death, nor was it simply proof of Jesus' divinity to his followers; it holds out the promise of eternal life for all who believe in him.

The two holidays' relative importance is even reflected in the church's liturgical calendar. The Christmas season lasts 12 days, as all carolers know, ending with Epiphany, a feast day in early January commemorating the Wise Men's visit to the infant Jesus.

The Easter season, on the other hand, lasts 50 days. On Sundays during Eastertide, Christians hear dramatic stories of the post-Resurrection appearances of Christ to his astonished followers.

The overriding importance of Easter is simple: Anyone can be born, but not everyone can rise from the dead.

2. There is biblical consensus on the story of Jesus' birth.

Life of Christ Window 1-6: Birth Narratives

From bottom left: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Annunciation to Shepherds, King Herod, Three Magi.

Panels 1-6 at the bottom of the Life of Christ Window, the center lancet beneath the west rose window. Dating from about 1150, it depicts the early life of Christ from the Annunciation to the Triumphal Entry.

Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, Centre, France

Even knowledgeable Christians may expect to find the familiar story of Christmas in each of the four Gospels: the journey of Mary on a donkey accompanied by Saint Joseph, the child's birth in a manger surrounded by animals, shepherds and angels, with the Wise Men appearing shortly afterward.

But two of the Gospels say nothing about Jesus' birth. The Gospel of Mark -- the earliest of the Gospels, written roughly 30 years after Jesus' Crucifixion -- does not have a word about the Nativity. Instead, it begins with the story of John the Baptist, who announces the impending arrival of the adult Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of John is similarly silent about Jesus' birth.

The two Gospels that do mention what theologians call the "infancy narratives" differ on some significant details.

Matthew seems to describe Mary and Joseph as living in Bethlehem, fleeing to Egypt and then moving to Nazareth.

The Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, has the two originally living in Nazareth, traveling to Bethlehem in time for the birth and then returning home.

Both Gospels, though, place Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem.

3. Jesus was an only child.

Catholics, myself included, believe that Mary's pregnancy came about miraculously -- what we call the "virgin birth." Catholics also believe that Mary remained a virgin her entire life, though many Protestants do not.

So, when Catholics stumble upon Gospel passages that speak of Jesus' brothers and sisters, they are often confused.

In the Gospel of Luke, someone tells Jesus, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you." In Mark's Gospel, people from Nazareth exclaim: "Is not this the carpenter's son?... Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?" Even Saint Paul called James "the Lord's brother."

These passages are sometimes explained away by saying that these are Jesus' friends, relatives, half brothers or, most often, cousins.

But there is a perfectly good word for "cousins" in Greek, which Mark and Luke could have used instead of "adelphoi," meaning "brothers."

Many Catholic scholars maintain that Jesus indeed had brothers and sisters -- perhaps through an earlier marriage of Joseph. So, a virgin birth, but step-brothers and-sisters.

4. The secularization of Christmas is a recent phenomenon.

Worries about diluting Christmas' meaning go much further back than recent memory. Gift-giving, for example, was seen as problematic as early as the Middle Ages, when the church frowned on the practice for its supposed pagan origins.

More recently, some religious leaders in the 1950s fretted about the use of the term "X-mas" (which, depending on whom you believe, either substitutes a tacky "X" for Christ or uses the Greek letter chi, an ancient abbreviation for the name).

The first few Christmas stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service in the early 1960s featured not the familiar Madonna and Child, but a bland wreath, an anodyne Christmas tree and sprigs of greenery.

And some of the most beloved "Christmas" TV shows from the 1960s -- "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- have little to do with the birth of Christ and are more about vague holiday celebrations and, mostly, gifts.

Linus' famous recitation from Luke's Gospel in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is the exception in pop culture, not the rule.

The overt religiosity of that scene, which flowed from the faith of Charles Schulz, drew criticism even at its first airing in 1965, as David Michaelis detailed in his 2008 biography of the cartoonist, "Schulz and Peanuts."

5. Midnight Mass is at midnight.

 

Midnight Mass, traditionally the first celebration of the Christmas liturgy, is also when Saint Luke's account of the birth of Jesus is read aloud. Recently, however, many churches have moved up their celebrations -- first to 10 p.m., then to 8 p.m., and now as early as 4 p.m.

Why? For one thing, churches are packed on Christmas Day.

Second, the elderly and families with children may find it easier to attend services on the 24th, so as not to conflict with the following day's festivities.

As a result, some parishes are cutting back on Masses on Christmas Day.


James Martin, a Jesuit priest and culture editor of "America" magazine, is the author of "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life." This column was published in the Washington Post.