A DOWN HOME CHRISTMAS

So many different kinds of death hunted us this Christmas Eve all through the French Quarter,

I would’ve gotten a headache trying to count them all –

If I already hadn’t had one – to go along with the broken ribs, fingers, and nose.

I looked over at Alice, my ghoul friend,

whose ability to turn to mist had been ripped from her by DayStar.

She sobbed softly, “Victor, our first Christmas together is our last.”

I had taken as many blows for her as I could.

Wasn’t that was Love did? Sacrifice themselves for the one they loved?

Alice had buried the statue of the Madonna and took its shawl. As I had done with the statue of Joseph, taking its robe and hood.

We kneeled beside the wooden manger in the St. Louis Cathedral’s courtyard Nativity Scene.

Right in plain sight of the slowly sniffing and scouting horrors prowling for us.

I didn’t even know some of the monsters hunting us. I knew enough to know Alice and I were goners.

Winged Gahe. Starved Amal. Scaled Soyoko.

And the ghosts, given flesh, fangs, and claws by DayStar, of all the people Alice had eaten over the decades.

Who would have guessed a wisp of a girl like Alice had such an appetite?

I stiffened at the tolling in the distance. I heard the bells, ringing their familiar, mocking refrain :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

Peace. Good Will.

In despair, I bowed my head.

‘There is no peace on earth!,' I said to myself.

'For hate is strong and mocks the song. The innocent die. The helpless cry out. Does anybody hear them?’

The night winds became soft words : ‘You kneel on holy ground and dare to ask that?’

I looked up. I recognized the stern ghost of a priest, a book of prayers or some such in his hands. Alice went as pale as I had ever seen her.

“Pere Antoine!”

He spoke in razored whispers. “For my sins in the Inquisition I am bound to this plane. So Friar Antonio de Sedella is now who I am.”

I saw the self-hate in his eyes. I saw the same look in Alice's.

I looked to the horrors so near. To speak would be to bring them to us.

But I was going to die anyway. Why not die, letting Pere Antoine hear that I believed in him even when he no longer could?

I shook my head and whispered back. “No, before Katrina, you helped me. You’ve helped others before and since.”

The winged Gahe spun at my words, and I blurted out, “With my last words, I say you don’t deserve to be bound here. You are Pere Antoine! You are a ghost of God!”

So many horrors rushed us that I got sick to my stomach. This was going to hurt so bad. Pere Antoine’s head cocked as if he were hearing words spoken into his very mind, and his ghost eyes grew wet.

He gestured, speaking loud :

“Dark Spawns, this is Holy Ground!”

The Shadowlanders must’ve forgotten that in their lust for our deaths. It bought them their own.

Pere Antoine, the prayer book tumbling to the grass, slapped both hands on the shoulders of Alice and me.

A warm tingle cascaded through me. Reality smeared in spirals of fiery, golden stardust as if God were wiping clean a chalkboard.

Sand, not grass, was suddenly beneath our knees. Cutting through me was a cold wind that can only be birthed in the desert.

My mouth got drier than the winds. The manger scene was now real. A young man and a younger woman were looking sheer love at the cooing baby. Outside the stable, high in the night sky, rippled haunting sounds that only angels could sing.

Pere Antoine kneeled beside me.

“God is not dead, nor does He sleep. No matter how dark, He always sees you. You are a special part of His heart, and you are never alone. Due to their very natures, the wrong shall fail. And those who trust prevail.”

The baby locked eyes with mine, His eyes clear and echoing with strange wisdom and delight.

Pere Antoine whispered,

“He wanted you and Alice to have a 'down home' Christmas.”

The baby laughed long and light.

Alice reached over and squeezed my hand. “I was wrong, Victor. Our first Christmas together is THE first Christmas.”

And impossible though it was, the French Quarter bells rang all around us :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

***

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

This is a version I think of as Victor Standish's version : not the tempo, tune, or words you expect. Give it a listen for me. Roland

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***

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

Merry Christmas to all my friends!

Christmas' present to all of us

is the subtle messages underneath the obvious ones :

1.) Love comes unexpectedly.

2.) You find love in surprising places.

3.) Love comes at its own season, in its own unique way, wearing a face you weren't looking for.

But then, we can be forgiven for not hearing those messages. After all, none of us is perfect. Well, there was that one.

But we killed Him.

Or did we? I choose to think not. I know His message and the messages of this day are not dead.

Love never quite dies. It stays in the sparkle in the eyes of each passing generation of children.

The best Christmas stories, in both movies and books, remind us that love always seems to find a way,

though it comes to us in unexpected ways, shining in the eyes of those we might have overlooked in the past.

The Jews were expecting a king. They never got one because they were looking in the wrong places for the wrong faces.

A manger contained the prince of peace in its straw. Few were even aware of His arrival.

Only those who were not too proud to stop and consider love might come unexpectedly and from a source we would never have suspected of containing it. And only to those who had kept looking up.

Christmas teaches us to keep the child's sense of awe, of wonder, and of the willingness to believe ...

in the possibilities of miracles,

of the soft whisper of magic in the air if you but listen,

and in the healing power of love.

Like young Kevin in HOME ALONE, it is up to us alone to protect the home of our hearts from being robbed of their innocence and love.

Sometimes we do not see unicorns in the snow because we have stopped looking for them.

Continue to look. Continue to hold gently to the possibility of a miracle waiting for you just around the next corner or the one after that.

Excuse me. I think I hear a strange whinnying outside my door.

I'll open it to have a look. My unicorn may be out there below my terrace right now waiting for me to go for a ride in the moonlight.

You never know.

Keep looking and believing, Roland
***

SILENT KNIGHT

This Christmas Eve as I sit alone with ghosts from my past, it occurs to me that each of us is a Silent Knight ...

A Silent Knight for whatever creed shapes our thoughts and steps.

No matter our words, it is our actions that speak for us.

Have we spoken love and forgiveness to only retort sharply at the harried store clerk who did not respond fast enough for us?

Have we scoured the stores for just the right present, the perfect gift wrap to snap at the very ones we bought it for out of irritation and weariness?

Have we slaved over a king's spread of assorted recipes, only to have no appetite or warmth or patience for those we prepared the delicious dishes for?

If we were to glance up and see the flag of the true creed which our actions proclaim we live by, would we cringe in disbelief?

Today books, films and Internet sites are filled with fanciful tales purporting to tell the history of "Silent Night."

Some tell of mice eating the bellows of the organ creating the necessity for a hymn to be accompanied by a guitar. Others claim that Joseph Mohr was forced to write the words to a new carol in haste since the organ would not play.

The German words for the original six stanzas of the carol we know as "Silent Night" were written by Joseph Mohr in 1816, when he was a young priest assigned to a pilgrimage church in Mariapfarr, Austria.

The fact is, we have no idea if any particular event inspired Joseph Mohr to pen his poetic version of the birth of the Christchild. The world is fortunate, however, that he didn't leave it behind when he was transferred to Oberndorf the following year (1817).

On December 24, 1818 Joseph Mohr journeyed to the home of musician-schoolteacher Franz Gruber who lived in an apartment over the schoolhouse in nearby Arnsdorf. He showed his friend the poem and asked him to add a melody and guitar accompaniment so that it could be sung at Midnight Mass.

His reason for wanting the new carol is unknown.

Later that evening, as the two men, backed by the choir, stood in front of the main altar in St. Nicholas Church and sang "Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" for the first time, they could hardly imagine the impact their composition would have on the world.

And so, they were Silent Knights for their God. As we, too, are Silent Knights for our gods : esteem in the eyes of others, wealth, social status, world acclaim, control over others, control over ourselves,

or He who sang the universe into being.

And we can hardly imagine the impact our actions, positive or caustic, will have on the network of fragile souls in our world.

May your Christmas Eve be magical and healing. Me and my Christmas ghosts tip our egg nog to you, while we listen to Enya singing "Silent Night." (Picture courtesy of S. Ward)
***