A Christmas Memory

I was born in 1958, so most of my childhood occurred during the 1960s.

Each Christmas Day in that decade followed a set schedule.

First, I would wake up very early in our little house on Memorial Drive in Barnesville. The house rule was that I had to wake my parents up before going into the living room to see what Santa Claus had brought me. This was so my father could arm himself with his Brownie 8mm movie camera, equipped with its panel of spotlights, to film the spectacle. We would then enter the place of wonder, where I would receive the first installment of my Christmas bounty.

Second, we would get dressed and go to the home of whichever Abbott was hosting my mother’s family’s Christmas celebration. If we were hosting it, we’d get dressed and stay home. After enjoying a delicious Christmas lunch, we’d open presents, and I would receive the second installment of my Christmas bounty.

Third, we would drive the ten or so miles to Yatesville, where we would slide into the Ruffin family’s Christmas celebration that was already well underway at MawMaw and PawPaw’s house. We’d open presents, and I would receive the third installment of my Christmas bounty.

By late in the afternoon, I was antsy to get home so I could play with all the stuff I’d had to leave there that morning. We’d say our goodbyes to whatever Ruffins remained and get in the car.

Then Mama would say, “Now Mike, we have to go see Mr. and Mrs. Lashley before we go home. Be sure to thank them for the gift they’ll give you.”

We’d go spend a little while with that elderly couple. They were nice. They would indeed give me a present, and they’d exchange presents with my parents. I noticed that they seemed particularly happy to see my mother.

At some point—I don’t recall how many times we visited them before I wondered enough to inquire—I asked my father why we went to visit Mr. and Mrs. Lashley.

Somewhere along the line I had heard about my mother having been engaged to a fellow named Buster before she married my father. Buster was killed in France in the days following the Normandy invasion, so he and my mother never married.

When I asked about Mr. and Mrs. Lashley, my father said, “Do you remember hearing about your mother’s fiancé, Buster? He was Buster Lashley. Mr. and Mrs. Lashley are his parents.”

I’m sure I responded with something deep, like, “How about that” or “Huh.”

But I’ve given it more thought over the years.

I’ve thought about a woman, who happened to be my mother, and her husband visiting the parents of the man she was once going to marry. I think about them doing so two decades after he died. I assume they had been doing so every year since they got married in 1946.

I think about how as they chatted in the early evening on those Christmas Days, they must have all thought, at least a little, about what might have been, but wasn’t, and about what might not have been, but was.

I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Lashley sat there thinking, “It could have been Sara and Buster. We wish it had been.” I wonder if they also thought, “We’re glad it’s Sara and Champ.”

I wonder if all of them thought about how the horrible and the wonderful, the painful and the blissful, and the losses and the gains exist side-by-side in this life, and how if you’ll just hold on, hoping, trusting, and trying, putting one foot in front of the other, it will all somehow, someway, work out in the long run.

I don’t know if they all thought about any of that.

But I, the son of Champ and Sara Ruffin, who could not have existed had they not married, sure do think about it.

Advent

The church is in the middle of the Advent season. The word Advent means “arrival.” During Advent, we anticipate the arrival of Jesus Christ.

There are four Sundays of Advent. The fourth and last one is the Sunday before Christmas Day. So Advent is a season to anticipate the arrival of Jesus Christ in his birth, which we celebrate on December 25, the first day of the twelve days of the Christmas season.

Jesus was born 2,000 years ago, so we aren’t actually waiting for him to be born. We are rather waiting for our celebration of his birth.

On the other hand, we might keep in mind the prayer request in the Christmas hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: “O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.”

During Advent, we also anticipate the coming of Christ to us. Even if we are Christians, even if we have been Christians for so long that we can barely remember a time when we weren’t, we still need Christ to come to us. We still need him to show us how we should follow him, how we should serve him, and how we should represent him in the world.

I no longer share memes on social media, but if I did, I’ve been seeing one lately that I would. It says something like, “I’m not concerned about putting Christ back in Christmas, but I do think we should put Christ back in churches.”

I know that sounds harsh, but I mean it to be thought-provoking. Both churches and individual Christians would do well to spend time during Advent carefully and prayerfully reading the New Testament Gospels, asking God to help us better understand who Jesus really is and what it really means to be his followers.

I can’t know exactly where such a quest will lead us. But I will say this: we should find ourselves being more committed to giving ourselves away for the sake of other people.

So during Advent, we await the arrival of Christ in his birth in Bethlehem. We also await the arrival of Christ in our individual lives and in our churches’ lives in whatever ways he wants to come to us.

During Advent, we also anticipate Jesus’ second coming. The New Testament teaches that one of these days, Jesus will return to fully establish God’s reign. When Jesus comes again, all will be as God intends for it to be.

We’ve been waiting a long time for Jesus’ second coming. We may wait a lot longer. Or we may not. We can’t know when Jesus will come again.

When we read what the New Testament writers say about Jesus’ second coming, we find them often encouraging their readers to be faithfully active in the meantime. We aren’t to sit around waiting for God to make everything as it should be. We are to be doing all we can to make things as good as they can be.

We do that by sharing God’s grace, mercy, and love with our attitudes, our perspectives, our words, and our actions.

We aren’t able to make everything good and right. Only God can do that, and God will through Christ do it someday.

But we are able to make things better, because the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem is also born in us. If we will get to know him better, we will follow him better. And as we follow him better, we’ll help make our homes, our communities, and our world better.

I think it would be great if, when Jesus comes again, he could look around and say, “Things here are a lot better than they might have been,” and if he could then say to those who follow him, “Well done, my good and faithful servants.”