For years ... decades really ... I was in charge of planning the holidays for hundreds of people. Hundreds of volunteers and sponsors were involved. It started several weeks before Thanksgiving and ended the day after New Year's. It was a crazy whirlwind of activity! To be honest Thanksgiving was more for the volunteers than the people with no place to go. So the volunteers were thankful but the homeless were still homeless.
I do love the Old Savannah City Mission's handling of Thanksgiving because they are clever enough to understand that it is really this incredible marketing opportunity. They feed thousands of people in the park who may or may not be hungry. Thousands of volunteers show up. It is a great photo op! Now that's smart. The Mission is thankful the rest of the year.
Christmas was worse. The birth of the Savior means everybody cares about the poor for a couple of weeks and are very intense about it. The givers are cheerful because for once during the year they are actually doing what God commands them to do ... be cheerful givers ... to the poor. Such cheerfulness just make the poor feel worse about things. Depression grows. The suicide rate climbs. Santa Claus doesn't visit everybody. But the cheerful givers are blessed.
One Christmas night I was leaving the "celebration"we'd had. In the Grace House laundry room I heard a noise. It was like a fight. Alarmed, I fiddled with my keys until I found the right one, stuck it in the knob and opened the door as quickly as possible.
The homeless man was making love to the homeless woman on top of the dryer.
"Hey Rev" he said without pausing. She said hello too.
How does one respond?
"Merry Christmas!" and I shut the door and let them ... celebrate.
By the time New Year's rolls around all of the cheerful givers have given out ... except for my dear friend Chuck Courtenay, the famous musician. He'd put on a New Year's Eve party for the homeless playing songs with his lovely wife Vicky grabbing them to dance. He brought food and those were the best nights. Everyone was feeling the same thing. Last year sucked! God I hope next year is better! Let's dance!
{Chuck. I never thanked you enough. Thank you.}
Then I just couldn't do anymore. I burned out on trying to make it all special for everybody. I'm not Norman Rockwell though I love his paintings of the ways that things should be ... but they're not. It took me a long time to learn that.
By this time there were enough people for me to pass things over to ... so I did. And I went to St. Martin. Christmas was white sand, aqua blue/green water, Trade Winds over the reef, Santa hats and steel drums. The cell phone rang with a lot with people wanting me to make decisions on the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's celebrations back home.
And I did ... but I had no more heart to give. It was all gone ... but once you give you heart ... people keep wanting it .. and if they don't give you theirs ... then you wake up one day and realize that yours is gone.
This year is different.
I'm riding the Christmas wave.
Dolphins jump behind me in the brown Tybee waters that make our seafood taste better than anyone else's. I'm not in St. Martin. I'm not in the homeless shelters. I'm sitting under Fran's thousand shades of green with the ocean singing loud songs.
But yesterday, I was in the nursing home playing guitar with the Samuel Adams band. We'd given everyone Harmonicas and old people in wheelchairs where sucking in and blowing out and ... smiling and singing and crying. I played in front of a woman trying to blow and sing and laugh at the same time. Grabbing her hand I said, "Let's Dance!"
She was in her wheelchair.
"Nobody's asked me in years," she said with tears of happiness.
So we danced.
And so this is Christmas.
It is small and intimate ... tiny and thoughtful ... humble and holy ... little ... like a baby in manger.
My friend Wen took a picture. I am leaning over dancing and smiling. The old woman sits in wheelchair flashing the joy of Christmas on her face.
Were he still alive ... Norman Rockwell would paint this.
