Christmas Presence

“Lights, please.” For half a century, it’s been one of the most significant phrases in American Christianity. A prelude to something sacred in an unlikely place: the Gospel of Luke, King James translation, as recited by Linus van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas. My parents were atheists; I knew almost nothing about Christianity as a child, although I got the lay of the land when I was sent to Catholic school in sixth grade. Before that, my parents—especially my mother—actively worked to keep me and my sister free from religion, Christianity in particular. But we had our gods. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny reigned over us, with great kindness and generosity, and if we came, eventually, to a crisis of faith, we dealt with it privately. My sister and I understood that our feelings about Christmas were very important to our parents. The brief—transmitted in the silent language of the family—was to be happy, because our parents had had terrible childhoods, and instead of working out th...

ACT ONE SPENCER Five Cent Piece CPG OGs Somethin's Brewin' in Gainesville   RON Cotton Patch Nativity ALLEN Goodbye Old Paint KAITLIN Is There a "W" in Christmas? BECCA Always in the Season RON   KWERKS Lights REBECCA + ROSA Charlie Brown's Inside Job, Caitlin Flanagan MICHAEL Beautiful Star of Bethlehem RON David Kossoff, Seth   GARTH Christmas Song (Alleluia) RON Joseph's Lullaby, Ron Klug MICHAEL Si Nous Marchons KAITLIN + JOEL C.S. Lewis, Father Christmas in Narnia     KWERKS Carry Me ACT TWO NELSON Heartbreak For Christmas GARTH Hello Christmas KAITLIN + PETER CARLONE The Xmas Files ALLEN Talkin’ Christmas Home Invasion Blues (by Wyndham Thiessen) RON Santaland Diaries , David Sedaris  KWERKS All That I Want RON   GARTH White Christmas REBECCA The Blessing of the Magi  ALLEN + LIETTE Magnificat KAITLIN Mary MICHAEL Mary Did You Know RON + SPENCER A Child's Christmas In Wales  ALL Silent Night CAST in order of appearance Spencer Capier B...

ACT ONE NELSON Jazz Instrumental CAROLYN Christmas Must Be Tonight REBECCA Gabriel, Frederick Buechner PETER Mary's Song w/ Lilia de Boer  KAITLIN  On Buses, Lance Odegard LANCE Familiar RON Keillor, Seven Principles of a Successful Christmas BECCA Always In The Season RON Magi reading + SHONA Mehguyver CAROLYN Is Bethlehem Too Far Away KAITLIN Mary  PETER Angels We Have Heard on High ACT TWO SPENCER Five Cent Piece LANCE Impossible Dream  RON introduce apprentices  KAITLIN & JOHN Xmas Files NELSON Heartbreak For Christmas KENTON Pretty Well Picked Over PETER Hung Fire REBECCA Blessing of the Magi, Jan Richardson CAROLYN Long Way To Go RON + SPENCER Christmas Drinks Party + Tolkien, Noel LANCE Alleluia, Christ is Born KAITLIN Rosen, No Safe Place CAROLYN Do Not Be Afraid / Angels We Have Heard On High CAST in order of appearance Nelson Boschman Becca Birkner Rick Colhoun Carolyn Arends Rebecca deBoer Peter La Grand Lilia de Boer Kaitlin Williams Lance Odega...

So there’s no safe place.  God, it seems,   might insert himself into any conversation,  any century.  Might settle in - any old place,  as he quintessentially did in the West Bank,  Palestine, small town called Bethlehem.  The story is - God breathed himself  into the womb of a woman, turning himself  over to her umbilical care, folding himself into fetal position, pressing and turning inside Mary, ‘til she, breathing hard, bore down.   Mary’s womb turned inside out - amniotic  water, gasping infant, placenta spilling  into the night, messy and miraculous  as any birth anywhere and not a safe place.   Did he know - he must have -when he took on  flesh and fingernail and bone marrow,  he would be at our mercy?   For us too, no safe place.  For you see what  he’s done - given notice how he, at any time,  might break into our conversation, West Bank,  West Coast, Bethlehem, Vancouver....

57 Elm Street Bethlehem, Pa. 11:51 p.m., December 24th   MULDER: Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care.   SCULLY: You really think someone’s been here?   MULDER: Someone, or something.   SCULLY: Mulder, over here—it’s a fruitcake.   MULDER: Don’t touch it! Those things can be lethal.   SCULLY: It’s O.K. There’s a note attached: “Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.”   MULDER: It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.   SCULLY: Who? What are you talking about?   MULDER: Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.   SCULLY: But that’s legend, Mul...

Buses are the only vehicles you find driving around with the interior lights on- rumbling through the city with illuminated strangers, light spilling out of the windows, melting the watching dark.   Do you find this odd? Surely TransLink isn't showing new concern, hoping to provide a few extra  moments for students to catch up on reading, are they? The driver does know where he is going, right?   He's not up there with a map draped across the steering  wheel-  was that Alma or Arbutus ? And it's not like we all have lots to catch up on and need to visit-  is that your new sweater ?   So, why are the lights still on?   They're not much. They feel faint and foreign,  almost invisible to our indifference-- yet in the midst ofthis absorbent darkness, light,  quietly resting on the tops of our shoulders.   It's 10:55pm on a Tuesday night and I can barely suspend the disbelief to admit this,  to hold the notion that we ride accompani...