The True Meaning of Christmas

Christ In Winter: reflections on faith from a place of winter for the years of winter…
“The True Meaning of Christmas”


The first place I learned the true meaning of Christmas was East Park Methodist, on New York St. in Indianapolis, almost to Rural St, 6 or 7 blocks from our house.

I was nine years old and had the second lead in a two-man Christmas play. I can’t remember the title. I was a young shepherd who learned the true meaning of Christmas from an older shepherd when the star of Bethlehem appeared to us.

The older shepherd was William B. Lewis, about fifteen years old, who was always called by his entire name. I would walk at night, by myself, in the dark, along New York St, where the bullies hung out in front of the hardware store, to meet William B. Lewis to rehearse. If the person with the key didn’t show up in time, or at all, to unlock the church, William B. Lewis and I would hang around on the church steps and talk about comic books. He favored “Don Winslow of the Navy,” since WWII had just ended and military comics were quite popular. I felt a bit inferior, since I still liked “little kid” comic books, Disney stuff like Mickey Mouse.

When the Christmas program time came, though, it was William B. Lewis who had spent too much time on comic books and had not learned his lines. It was my first experience with improv, but I managed to carry us both and learn the true meaning of Christmas—you need to know your lines, but be ready to improvise.

JRMcF

{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

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