CHRISTMAS 1981

Beloved of the Lord Jesus Christ,

I remember reading a friend's letter and pondering over the words, "the coming of God among us." A silly thought flickered through my mind. Why doesn't God's coming among us feel like the warmth of the heater in my office? Why do men like me search for different ways to elicit living Christmas responses from people? Isn't it enough to retell the story of the birth of Jesus?

"You are looking for a bomb," perked a squeaky voice!"

I didn't bother to look up. I crinkled my nose and squeezed my eyelids closed. I waited for the chiding blast from the Lord of the Limpocks' thin mouth to work on the doors of my heart and mind. "Bomb?" slipped quietly from my lips into the unexpected silence. I peeked out of one eye to see that white crescent grin spreading across his green face. His left leg dangled over the other. I wondered what he would do if the office door suddenly opened.

"Bomb!" he said with certainty.

"What does a bomb have to do with the Incarnation?"

"If you stood in the immediate vicinity of one exploding, you'd get the message!" Gingwiggle pushed spectacles back up the his ridiculous looking nose. Amusement crept across his tiny face.

I'd feel terrified," was my meek response. Underneath, I was frustrated, annoyed and embarrassed at how easily the little fellow played my heart and mind.

Gingwiggle tittered a restrained laugh. "The point, my dear priestly friend, is that you would feel it!" He leaped gently from one desk to the other. "It would be like the moment you looked at the color photograph of the billowing wall of Mt. St. Helen racing toward the photographer as he stood in Bear Meadow."

He was referring to the photo of ash and rock taken by National Geographic photographer, Gary Rosenquist. I shivered as when I first saw the picture. It was awesome to consider being there while that searing gray wall charged you at 200 miles per hour.

"You want your flock to feel  the powerful force that His Majesty quietly unleashed in the Child of Bethlehem." There was strangeness in Gingwiggle's voice, as if he was annoyed with me.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"You ought to know, " he snapped. "Too much theological irreverence regarding the Snowman." The crescent grin was gone, replaced by a frown. Tiny tears formed in the corners of his eyes. Sadness oozed from the little Limpock as he softly whispered, "Frosty . . ."

"Frosty? . . . Oh! Now wait a minute. I understand very well . . ."

"Do you now?" Sarcasm and agitation were in his voice. "Mere intellect! Bah! You need to wed your mind and heart. Let them feel!" He snapped his little green fingers. I groaned.

Suddenly it was cold. I mean, my friends . . . cold! The wind whistled loudly around me and through my bones. It was dark. A nearby light accented the stinging snowflakes. Ice and snow crunched beneath my quickly numbing feet. I stomped them and screamed, "Gingwiggle! For crying out loud, where am I?"

"Where Frosty feels well!" came Gingwiggle's sarcastic reply. "You quickly desire what is hell to Frosty . . . that which he freely chose." The Limpock hopped into view and said, "Go on! Go over to the light. See what is so easily ignored."

I pushed against the wind and biting cold. Snow stuck to my eyes. When I got closer to the light, I recognized what appeared to be a greenhouse. Shivering, I crunched up to its windows, scraped frost off the glass and peered into the warmth and the flowers.

"What do you see?" snapped the voice of the Limpock now perched on my right shoulder.

"A little girl," I replied between chattering teeth.

"Is that all?"

"No," I said sadly. "She's crying and bending  over a large puddle of water." I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"That puddle, dear priest, is all that remains of Frosty. He became a puddle inside the greenhouse so that little one wouldn't freeze to death out here."

Through chattering teeth, I whispered, "And God so loved the world . . ."

Once again,  a pair of fingers snapped and I was shivering in my office chair, even as the heater blew its warm air at me. "Aye!" a tiny voice said in the shadows. "His Majesty became a baby so that you might not stay out in the cold."

Be careful, dear friends, about what you say concerning Christmas characters. Gingwiggle almost let me freeze outside the greenhouse.

The last thing he said was, "The Child was the bomb that's still exploding love . . . feel it!"

Love in the Christ Child,

A Blessed Christmas,

Fr. Col+