Well, they tell me you are not supposed to laugh in church. We are supposed to be joyful, but not laugh. Well, I totally defied all the odds and not just laughed in church last night but howled; inside of course. Well, no, not really. We were laughing, the people beside me were laughing, the people in back of me were laughing and we laughed ourselves out the door. Oh yes, even the people in front of us were laughing.
You see it was the Christmas program by the Elementary Children at Church. Lots, and I mean lots of kids were on stage dressed in the black T-shirt that I think said, "it's a Son".
The boy that caught our eye, was one of the first ones on the stage and the last one off; literally. He had it. He had the smile, he had the impish twinkle in his eye, and he had the beat. You don't need a fidget spinner when you got arms, legs and hips. He was moving every which way and relatively standing still; kind of. It's hard to behave when there are hundreds of people looking at you. He did sing; once in awhile. He got the Joy down and he got his boogie down. And that was just the beginning; but I would like to see you stand for 35 minutes on stage and not itch and scratch.
Then, here comes Mary and Joseph. What caused hysteria was the calm way that Mary said, "Joseph I have a pain; I think it's time." No way on the face of this earth has a women ever calmly said, "Honey, i am dilated to ten and by the way I have a contraction...." calmly. If you have had a contraction that racked your body and made you double over, there is nothing calm about saying anything. But the funniest thing was what came next. Joseph said, "Here Mary, I have made a bed for you to lie on." I have been married for almost 30 years. I am not sure Jim has ever made a bed... But then again they were newlyweds too.
The Angels came in next to sing; they were the Preschool. There is nothing cuter than preschool kids looking like total dorks with stuff around their head to try to imitate halo's. Just let them be cute, however it does allow for some interesting actions as no one trains their preschooler to walk around with scratchy stuff on their head. When it's a strange thing on your head, your nose scrunches up, your eyes have to look straight up to see it and then you have to wave at anyone in the audience you might know. That's all normal, but, what does an angel do when he has to sneeze? Let er rip! And he did it fairly on beat also but it didn't help our giggle factor. We were attempting to try not to egg on the preschoolers while watching the dancing behind them
. And then, here comes the wise men. Did you know wise men brought Funyuns to baby Jesus? Why not? I guess if you can have Joseph making beds and Mary calmly stating she is having a baby, bring along a bag of Funyuns. They have enough preservatives in them they would not have had to worry about spoiling.
Christmas through the eyes of children is always a blessing. Christmas through the eyes of faith is always soul searching and Christmas through the eyes of Jesus, well I am sure that in more ways than one he realized quite quickly that he left heaven this will be an adventure. As they left the stage the last things the kids doing the acting part which was going through the Nativity scene piece by piece and sharing what it meant, was to remind us what Mary did. Well, what she did after she calmly had her pain and a baby. Mary pondered. Of course Mary pondered. She's a women. We ponder. We think about. We rehash. We remember. We think back upon. We meditate. We mull over. Yep- we ponder all right. The difference is that we ponder about things that are so meaningless and worthless. We worry about our clean house (or lack of that first word- clean). We worry about if the food is good enough. We worry about if people will like our new couch. We worry about if anyone will remember our birthday (and yes I forgot 3 this past couple weeks). We worry; we don't ponder. Mary pondered these things. What things? The angel telling her she would be a mother without having sex, the fact that Joseph didn't have her put to death (unwed mothers were often put to death), that she made the trip on a donkey, the angels, the shepherds, the proclamation of who her son would be....what a difference my life would be if I pondered those things in my heart rather than the things I worry about.
I don't really make New Years Resolutions but I will try to ponder Mary's pondering rather than my meanderings. I will ponder what God has done for me, I will ponder the uninhibited joy of a child dancing with no hesitancy an the angel sneezing and still sang on. I will ponder the beauty of the Nativity and each role that the figures played in Jesus coming to earth to be my Messiah.
And yes, at the end you will never guess who came running back across stage when the others were walking off in line? Ok- you guess it. And he made me smile all over again- ok we laughed again. The joy of Christmas through the eyes of a child should make us do things because we can't help ourselves...and make others smile from the heart in the process.
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