Morning Thanks--a gift at Christmas

I already got my gift. Oh, sure, a couple of things will be there for me under the tree in a week or so, I'd guess. More joy will be arriving, too--like the college kids out caroling a few nights ago, kids who were surprised when one of their profs stepped out on the porch--they were caroling at random, I guess.

But a real gift at Christmas, for me at least, is a moment of startling joy, maybe just an image or single solitary act, the perfect word or melody, some blessed glimpse of the unexpected eternal. Little miracles mean it's Christmas. And last night, I got one.

There may well be some folks around who don't carry heartache into the Christmas season, but they are few and they'll probably get theirs soon. I wish life weren't so heavy-laden, but this vale of tears holds its abundant griefs.

And I sometimes wonder how parents of exceptional kids make a go of it. Many do not, of course; but some, blessed with grace, somehow keep it up, day-to-day, within the walls of their own family's blessed privacy.

Last night at the church Christmas program, an autistic boy, tall and slender, sat right in front of us, under the care of his own one-on-one Sunday school teacher; and when the kids all grouped together for a medley of Christmas songs up front, he and his teacher tagged along, so that there he stood, in the front, with the rest, sometimes singing, mostly not. It was a rich moment.

But there was more. The older kids, he among them, then sat, picked up instruments, and played some carols, while two little girls in tiaras signed the lyrics up front. Most of the kids were on strings, but this boy held forth on a little percussion thing he had to shake to get out the beat. His part was to keep time.

And he did. I watched him. He did.

I don't know much about the autism spectrum. I don't know if anyone else was as delighted as I was to see him keep rhythm. Maybe my expectations are so shallow as to make my joy sentimental. If that's true, I repent. But his keeping time was wonderful, too.

The real gift, however, was not simply the way that boy kept up a beat in the middle school orchestra, bringing carols to life along with the rest. The real gift was in the face--in the eyes--of his teacher, whose joy could hardly be contained. That this kid could participate and did--that was the particular blessing that brought a glow to the sanctuary, I swear. Her face, bright with joy was, for me at least, a real gift at Christmas.

Nothing new there, of course. The blessedness of the season is, like hers, in the giving. Believers like me--ancient as we are--have known that truth for most of our lives, a moral precept as old as the hills around Bethlehem. But some of us are slow learners, and, like the beat of that carol, we have to hear it over and over and over to feel it deeply in our hearts and souls. Far easier to say than to do, or so it seems--to give, that is.

Today, my morning thanks is for a wonderful Christmas gift last night--a kid keeping time, a face bright with joy, and the eternity of it all.
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Reprinted from Christmas, 2009.