Tis the season to be jolly, and for many it is. Christmas is a festive
time of year, when families gather, meals consumed, gifts given, and stories of
Christmas past are shared. Here is one of my favorite Christmas memories, but
with a twist. A bit of mystery to it if you will, a mystery that to this day
remains unsolved. I was about 6 years old, and Christmas Eve was a time of food
and family. A time of after giving gifts, we all gathered in the car, and rode
around looking at Christmas lights. A time of trying to stay up late, but going
to bed so Christmas morning would arrive sooner, with more toys. We may have
been kids, but we were no fools. But on this particular Christmas Eve I was
given a jack hammer toy, that made noise like a real jack hammer, just like the
ones the real men used building the streets around our house. It was the hammer
tool part, so big you had to stand, just like in real life, with a hose attached
to a huge cardboard box painted like a compressor, man I was digging it.
Ralphie may have had his Red Ryder rifle, I had my Michigan loader jack hammer.
And all was not silent that night in our house. After a few minutes of annoying
jack hammer sounds that no one but me and the giver could appreciate, I was
banished with my Grandma to the farthest bedroom to play with it, she had picked
it out, she was to suffer. After a few minutes my arms began to ache, you
pushed down on the jack hammer part to make the noise, the harder the louder,
and my arms were tired. Grandma’s ears must be near deaf now, and so we put it
up for the night. And after a ride looking at lights it was bedtime, so Santa
could bring more gifts. But unlike most kids that Christmas Eve, I went to
sleep dreaming of my jack hammer, and road to build, sidewalks to break up, and
a day of construction with it. More toys would be nice, but I had all I
wanted.....and off to sleep I went.
Waking up the next morning there were toys than any sane kid should have.
So after opening them, prioritizing which ones to play with next, I went looking
for my jack hammer. Which was nowhere to be found. Checked the bedrooms, the
cellar, the closets, but it was nowhere to be found. Just like Amelia Earhart
and Jimmy Hoffa, it had vanished into thin air. And no one knew where, or had
heard any noises in the night. How could this toy, my favorite toy be lost?
Surely someone knew something, but no one knew or said a thing. And a silence
fell over my Christmas that wasn’t there the night before, and I was sad. And
every time I would bring it up, I was told not to worry, it will show up. which
it never did, or has, it is easier to believe in Santa than where my jack hammer
went, a true unsolved mystery, right out of the X-Files of my youth. With only
my brief memory of it remaining, for all who were there that night are now gone,
or were too young at the time to remember. But I do, and I still search ebay,
or look in vintage toy stores for one like it. For only one brief moment I want
to return to that Christmas Eve when I was 6, and the joys of jack hammers rang
in my ears.
It is ironic that a favorite song of mine and others is Silent Night. For
the night that the song sings about was anything but quiet. It was census time,
and all had to come and be counted and register for tax purposes. The city of
your heritage called you to return, and it must have been like the Shiprock
Fair, where hundreds of thousands converge on a small town of less than 15,000
with no hotels, limited stores, and no running water. So many camp, stay up all
night, or sleep in their trucks. Not at all silent, or even related to
Christmas, but a celebration once a year that each Navajo is required to
attend. That was the scene is Bethlehem that night, a stop along the way for
teenaged parents to be Joe and Mary. Jose y Maria for Latinos. They probably
walked or rode on a donkey part of the way, and needed a place for a pregnant
Mary to rest that night. Yet no rooms were found, and inns were not the Holiday
type of today. They were usually of il repute, dirty and dangerous, and not the
place for a mother to be. And so faced with no room for the night, they camped
in the courtyard like many others, among the animals of the day. A night
bustling with activity where silence was the only thing not in attendance. No
privacy, no quiet, no nurses or midwifes attending. And in the midst of all
this, God sent his son Jesus to be born. And still today he enters our lives in
different ways, but each one personal. And like the night of his birth, the
evidence of him is still here today. And so we celebrate his birth, his place
in our lives daily, but reserve December 25th of each year as special. We give
presents, and we love to get presents, a tradition started by God that night.
He gave the best present of all, his only son. And today we give presents to
remember his presence in our own lives. How humbly he came into the world,
those around him not knowing who he was. And how he left just as publicly, with
many still not knowing who he was. But by his spirit we can come to know him
today. And you can know him today just by asking him into your life. And as we
dig deeper into the Christmas story, we are even more amazed. From virgin
birth, to no room at the inn, we have so many songs to sing and celebrate. No
mystery about Jesus was and is, he is God incarnate, God coming to earth in the
form of a man to save us. A night of silence in many hearts, a peace only he
can give, despite his humble beginnings. A day when he was first to be counted
by man, without us knowing how much he would ever count in our lives. Without a
doubt, the best gift ever given, or received. The presence of Jesus in our
world, and in our lives.
Yet today the mystery of the missing jack hammer still permeates my
Christmas, even pictures of that Christmas show it, proving it really was there,
but there is no mystery surrounding Jesus and his birth and his impact on the
world. And in my life. Christmas toys and memories will come and go, don’t let
Jesus be a memory, remember him today, and everyday. Give love as he did, and
remember his enduring presence. Which only leaves another Christmas mystery to
be revealed. One that confuses and many have marveled about over the years.
One we sing about with no reservation, but have no idea what it is. Maybe you
can enlighten me. Just what is a “round, yon virgin?”
love with compassion,
Mike
matthew25biker.blogspot.com