Wanted: A White Christmas

 (Thought- Random)

       Color has always been associated with things to picture Christmas...I'll take green for the Christmas tree, red for the mistletoe, silver for the bells and white for the snow.  But it is because they stand as symbols for the deeper meaning of Christmas that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if Christmas were without color.

        Green is a nice color and it also stands for hope.  The people's anticipation of the Redeemer that lasted four hundred years created a sea of hope but the joy that took over when finally the first Christmas day came was three worlds combined.

        Red for joy.  We all know that the birth of Christ is a red-letter day for all of us.  It meant the coming of the Savior,  the Redeemer of mankind.  Who could've brought us more joy than He?  But then,  His death was also a red-letter day not in the sense that His death was reason for joy but because His death was meant to be the re-opening of Heaven's Gates to us.  Red not for the blood that oozed out from His wounds nor for the flesh which torture and thorns and nails knifed through.  He was born on earth to die for us, yes, but red for the triumphant saving of mankind.

        Silver for the bells that give us the sounds of Christmas - the distinctive ringing that finds its way into each heart.  Funny the way it does but it really seeks a path that won't take No for an answer especially from doors of cold, cold hearts that refuse Christ's love..... hearts that claim they need not the warmth of heavenly love.  Silver, too, as the star that brightly shone down on the manger on which He lay - the same silver star that led the Three Wise Men to Him.

       White for the snow that makes every tree a leafless one  - (almost all though) .......makes them  ivory sculptures,  without which Christmas kind of seem incomplete.  Somehow the bareness of the trees naturally puts across the allusion to the cold that triggers the scene.   So the Christ Child  lay there cold,  yes,  and yet it wasn't for the deep December night.  It was simply due to the lack of reciprocating warm love that He so yearned for from us.  He has given us all His very  life.  Now, what can we give in return for that much?

         Christmas is Christ's birthday. 

         If we can offer friends brown chocolates or pink roses on their birthdays, why not let us offer Christ a truly white Christmas this year.  Not the white of the snow nor the candles we light nor the cards that we send nor the clothes that we wear, but the purity of heart that has banished all the dirt of evil from its every chamber to serve as the whitest, widest, room for the new-born Babe.  This is all the magic needed to make Christmas white for Christ.  Though humble and unworthy it may seem when warm and stainless from sin and sincerely prepared as a dwelling for Him, the heart is turned into a royal temple fit only for a King.  The only thing left then is to invite Him in to give the final color to Christmas - a Christmas not only with all the essence of the rainbow colors of the world - but also most especially with the heavenly grandeur of a whiteness in the form of love for Christ.  Just this for really and  truly a WHITE CHRISTMAS.

                                                                                                                                      

Christmas in - WHERE? !!!

(A Short Story)

        You log on to your computer and the profile photo of Linda smiling coyly at you comes floating in on chat.  She types in 'Hi Fred, What's up?'   And you reply 'What do you mean What's up?.... you were supposed to let me know your place choice for dinner Christmas evening...it's just a couple of days away now,  in case you forgot!'  'Right!', she says, 'Sorry, Honey! Have been quite busy in here lately.  Fact is, there are a couple of transcripts waiting for me just now.  Hang in there, won't you?  Be right back ... oh, better still, why don't you do the choosing and then we talk!'  And she's off

      'My girl!',  you tell yourself as you give in to a feeling of giving in......and, - as you stare blankly at your screen.   And you are brought back to the time you first met her.  Your sister had asked you to help get her son's transcript of records from his university.   'Anyway, it's just a block away from your bank,  Little Brother',  she had sweetly entreated you.  'Your bank' was where you were one of the officers... and still are.  'What you do for family!', that's what you said then.  But you dutifully walked out of the bank during one of your coffee breaks - toward the university and on to the registrar's office.  There is where you saw Linda.   Because she was the Registrar. She had clerical staff to do your nephew's transcript so that all she had to do was affix her signature to have it released.  But in between some of the time, as you curiously looked at her going through the sheets of paper at her desk,  she had casually glanced at your direction,  probably sensing your scrutiny of her.  But that was just it!  A fleeting glance.  A magic moment that started it all.  Because back at your office,  you had called her up and this was followed by a  friendship.  You liked her simple ways...her childlike candor as it was sometimes, -provincial, you might have even thought...but you also liked the intelligence in her conversation, her sense of humor.   And then you began to love her.

        Suddenly a blinding flash of light from nowhere makes you stare incredulously into your computer screen. You're looking at yourself driving through some kind of a highway.  'What's this?', you ask yourself as you try to make sense out of  what was going on.  But now, as you notice the 1's and the 0's lining up the highway and as you speed through, you realize you're on the - the internet highway?  'What insanity is this!', you exclaim under your breath,   But even as you apparently don't  believe it, you seem to know that you are heading to a  particular night spot which happens to be Linda's favorite.  It's Christmas evening and you mean to give the place a last minute check out before you go fetch her for dinner. So you actually are speeding through.

         Now comes a vehicle also in speed from behind  wanting to catch up with you.  You try to find out who it is through a look at your back mirror and you're surprised to recognize it is Linda - scarf and hair flying off with the wind as she tries to bring her red convertible alongside yours,  signalling you to the side. 'What has become of my provincial Linda?' you ask yourself.   So you do park to the side, casually leave your car and you approach her as she too parks behind you    Nonchalantly,  you greet her with a 'What's up, Officer?'

        She smiles sheepishly at you as she responds,  'Hey now, corny people not allowed! Just hop in, won't you?'  You do and you try to settle down in the seat beside her.  'So what's going on?', you manage to say,   'You know  I  was just going to check out the place before I came to fetch you and here you come storming after me.  What's on your mind,  Little One?'   You  always loved to tease her about her size but this was also your term of endearment for her.  And as your eyes continue to search hers, you couldn't miss how they sparkled with excitement as she asserts, 'Change of plans, Mister, we're going elsewhere!'   'What?', you blurt out,  'This was your choice - a place away from reality  as you call it.  And you got it!  What's wrong with it now?'  She counters in a matter-of-fact way,  'Cyberspace? Not anymore.... it has become too crowded here.  Let's go out to real space - out to the galaxy!'   And again, you exclaim, 'What?'

       Before you can utter another unbelieving remark, Linda drives back into the highway and literally zooms out of it into the vast, dark, space like it was just one of those  normal things.  While you say over and over again, 'I don't believe this, I don't believe this!', you remember good old bedtime stories of Peter Pan who with a sprinkle of pixie dust and a call for happy thoughts made the ship of Captain Hook sail the skies from Neverland to London.  Really and truly,  Linda was actually driving her car through space toward Saturn!  'There's my favorite planet,  dear Fred!',  she tells you. 'There's a table for two waiting for us on the biggest ring... guys to wait on us...well, not exactly guys the way you know them but guys... food, lights, music, the works!'  And she turns her eyes to you affectionately, her right hand reaching for your face.  You gently catch this hand and as gently, you return the hand on the wheel.

        And sure enough, as Linda lands her car on Saturn's chosen ring, you could see in a near distance an uncontested special place.  You're both out of the car now, approaching the place and you are silently ushered to your seats by non-human looking gentle people and now you decide  you might as well go along.  The moon came closer to lend its silvery light and a number of stars came closer as well,  giving out sounds of tinkling crystals to the melody of - 'what's this song again?',  you ask Linda.... -and she answers tentatively, 'Winter Wonderland?'  'Right', you say, 'I don't know about the winter thing, but it sure is a wonderland here. How'd you find it?'  Her answer: 'I googled it!' To which you both burst to laughter!

        The gentle people hurry to set your table with the food, the flowers, the wine. - as you sit there across Linda, adoring her,  lovely  in her dress and in her simply being her.  The music so out of your world,....sweet, soft, slow, makes you stand up to take her to dance to it.  And as you dance whispering Merry Christmas! to each other's ear,  you are lost to this incredible  momentary warp in time.  But  then you also have to eat,  thus  you go back to your seats.  Now you both raise your wine glasses to a toast,  and the clink sound they make gives you a jolt back to your computer screen  - and to Linda who is typing: 'Hey, Honey, am back!  Have you thought of something?'

        For some lingering seconds, you stare at her question and then ....and then....'Yes!', you reply,  'It was actually still your choice!'.... to which she types back,  'What are you talking about?'  You continue:  'You just brought me there, you know!  Why don't we go have dinner up that ring of Saturn!'    She types back:  'What?'  And you answer,  'I said why don't we go spend Christmas in space!'   Incredulously  she repeats, 'Christmas in - WHERE?'

Ave! Dominus Tecum!

(Thought-Random)


          That evening, many years ago,  I was alone in my room,  but I was cross,  very cross,  indeed,  and at the verge of tears when I was supposed to have joined the merry-making, the laughter and the songs of Christmas - on that particular evening,  most specially,  because it was the first of the nine days before Christmas... when we celebrated the first Misa de Gallo for the year.   The day had started so beautifully at dawn  but towards the end of the day,  I didn't like the way things turned out.  And then I simply ignored everything.
 
          I  had cast my eyes into the frightening darkness of the night trying to create images in that black space but could not.   All I could sense was emptiness...the same emptiness that I felt inside my heart as one by one, my disappointments came floating to my mind...-my school,  my home and family,  my special one... all just seemed to gang up on me as if to let me know that I didn't deserve life!

         As those thoughts then hurt,  cutting me like till I bled,  I turned my eyes up to the heavens,  wondering if from there I could seek  some source of refuge... and a little star seemed to glimmer.   Then one more appeared... and then another,  and another and another - and all of them gaily shined harmoniously,  as if in mockery of the darkness that was in my heart.   At about the same time,  one song kind of  slowly and majestically surfaced above the competing sounds and music that dinned  the air - the one beautiful,  Ave Maria  song.   And then that one line from it simply arrested my entire being - Ave, Dominus tecum... the angel telling Mary  ' Hail, the Lord is with you'.

         An inexplicable  force seemed to redirect my thoughts to this one line and and impressed on me the fact that to this announcement  of the angel,  Mary had obediently consented to the Lord's designs for her.  So why couldn't I,  a simple wretched creation of God  be less proud,  less vain,  less  stubborn, ...  when   all that was around me was actually love in diverse  appearances no matter how negative my interpretations.  


            The healing strains of the song continued to search its place in my heart as I finally broke into tears but tears these were no longer of bitter grief,  but of a most blessed  change into joyful peace.
    

Ave Maria - Perry Como

Yuletide Trimmings

(Thought-Random)

        Christmas today is a time of goodwill and feasting.  It is a joyous medley of festive songs and fragrant evergreens, of pealing bells and lilting carols.  It is a time of dimly-lit Christmas cribs and brightly-lit Christmas trees.  There is a curious mixture of religious services, of evergreen wreaths of holly and mistletoe, of puddings and cakes, and tinkling music boxes and bells.  But it was not always so.

        History tells us that Christmas was not celebrated until nearly 400 years after the angel of the Lord had sent the shepherds of Bethlehem to look for the Infant Lord in a manger.  Even then, it was not called 'Christmas'  because that name came about 800 years later in England where the celebration of the midnight Mass on the eve of the Nativity was permitted and was called 'Christ's Mass', later shortened to 'Christmas'.

        Christmas was at first a purely religious feast, but as more and more pagans left their false gods to follow the one, true God, the feast acquired secular characteristics.  The pagans discarded their gods without much struggle, but the old revelries and feasting which they had associated December 25 with were hard to forget.  The Church allowed certain harmless pagan customs to continue and now these customs have been so much imbued into our Christmases that even we cannot celebrate Christmas without them.

        Giving little candles and clay dolls for gifts was an old Roman custom.  The Northern barbarians are credited with the gift-giving custom.  The artificially-decorated Christmas tree seems to have been used first in Germany.  This became a 'must' in England when Queen Victoria of German descent had one set up in Windsor Castle.  From the Goths, we inherited the Yule log celebrations.  St. Francis of Assisi gave us the 'Belen' or Christmas Crib in 1223 and his followers, the Christmas Carol.

        Bells are another feature of Christmas today.  They peal from church steeples and mingle with the Adestes floating from church choirs.  They ring to announce a Christmas that has traveled long and far from Bethlehem to the four corners of the earth,  from generation to generation,  gathering more joys as it came.  Tidings of great joy that shall be to all people, announced by the angel that night in Bethlehem,  are retold and now, almost 2000 years later, the birth of Christ is once again celebrated with the joyous jubilation and reverence of all peoples hovering like incense around the incorruptible holiness of Bethlehem.

MOMENTS TO REMEMBER -Statler Brothers 2002.mpg

Communicating Information

(Thought-Random)

        Have you ever thought that 'information' and 'communication' were two words you could interchange using?  Because if ever you have, gentle reminder, dear friend, apparently you can't!  Journalist Sydney J. Harris makes the distinction  in that 'information' is  giving out while 'communication' is getting through'.  And well, you just could use both  'information' and 'communication' as substantives  as when you say 'The information he gave was incorrect.' and 'My communication to them was intercepted'.   But see,  to interchange them would violate certain semantic constraints. To say  'The communication he gave was incorrect.' and 'My information to them was intercepted.' may be syntactically correct... meaning, they are grammatically correct, why not.... but they would not be semantically acceptable unless taken in appropriate contexts.  One's knowledge of meaning combinations simply hesitates to confirm.   This, in fact,  reminds me of the linguist Noam Chomsky's seminal  'Green ideas sleep furiously.'  Nothing wrong with the grammar of this sentence but definitely, it is a semantic violation. And guess what - I love that sentence, I really do!

                                

        Anyway, what really invites my interest at the moment is Sydney's 'getting through' concept of communication. This situation could be visualized as involving a speaker and a hearer in a context where the former tries to convey to a another an understandable message.  Just to call your attention, -  it is the message understood  that is the main focus, otherwise the communication doesn't reach home base and the activity is considered a communication failure.

        Three ways by which a message could be transmitted, Ladies and Gentlemen.   These are oral, written, and non-verbal. Oral: -you talk to another on the phone, you deliver a speech;  written: -you send an e-mail, you write a treatise; non-verbal: ...wait! -let's do this.  Let us, in fact,  zero down on this.  Non-verbal communication is also known as body language. This includes among others,  facial expression, eye contact, touch, and space. One doesn't have to communicate in so many words of his disapproval....he only has to frown and the message is sent. A smile is a message of either joy or consent. In some countries like Japan, a child being scolded  by an elder smiles to show courtesy.  A raised eyebrow is one of incredulity or skepticism;  rolled eyes, an 'I told you so' message.  Ever noticed that when you are in a crowded restaurant and the waiters are kinda being overworked, they will try to avoid your eye contact....-or at least delay meeting it?  Well, this is because with eye contact, one sends the message that he wants attention.  In other cases, however, giving eye contact may  mean it is you who is giving your interested attention as in a speech delivery situation.  The eyes are a very effective message transmitter.  They can communicate interest, hostility,  and attraction, -whether sexual or harmless flirting.  With touch, we can  communicate a great deal:  a firm handshake, a warm bear hug, a gentle brush of the back of the fingers across the other's cheek or a controlling grip on the arm. And then space.  Depending on culture, situation, or the closeness of the relationship, space could either be too distant or too close for comfort.  Thus the use of space could signal intimacy, dominance, aggression or affection. Doesn't this sound familiar?
  
        So communication is possible without any words involved.  But there is one other thing in communications where we do use words but do not necessarily follow academic categories like declarative, interrogative,  imperative sentences. If you still remember good old grammar school,  you were told that declarative sentences are statements; interrogative sentences, questions;   imperative sentences make others do an action and so on and so forth.  However, we really don't do these all the time.  This means that sometimes, we utter a question to state a disapproval  as when one says of a friend's mistake: - 'Isn't that the stupidest thing you ever did?'  Other times, we really are requesting, not asking a question with 'Won't you lend me five bucks for now?' because the positive response expected here is not a 'yes' or a 'no' but an actual giving of the money. Then take the situation where a lady makes an expressive 'It's cold in here!'. The function of this utterance is not to state her discomfort but to let the guy beside her either close the window where the draft is coming from or to let him put his arm around her for some warmth.

        The above sentences which apparently go beyond traditional grammar are called speech acts in the linguistics trade as engendered by the philosopher J. L. Austin.  He  posits the fact that we really perform an act when we utter a sentence no matter what the structure; that is, we request, we negate, we deny, we inquire....and a lot more.   In fact, our 4-year old at home is no exception. As she is always taught to ask for  permission for anything she wants done or wants to do herself, she dutifully complies.  So that when one time her father playfully forks away a piece of food from her plate during dinner,  she correspondingly communicates information of her demand for protocol: 'Papa, did you ask me permission?'

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