Getting into the holiday spirit

MICHELE MARR

One of the New Year’s resolutions I made for 2004 was to get my

material preparations for Christmas -- the gift lists and purchases,

the menu plans and recipes -- finished before Thanksgiving this year.

As I shopped last year in the weeks after Thanksgiving, I

regretted how much my forays into markets and malls robbed me of a

Christmas spirit and mottled my spiritual preparation for the

approaching holy day.

The frazzled nerves, impatience and short tempers of shoppers and

sometimes clerks sparked and compounded my own.

I didn’t quite live up to my initial resolve. I still have a

couple of parcels to pack and mail, but I came close. At least my

parcels will be traveling by regular mail instead of overnight FedEx.

A few days into Advent I opened an e-mail from Father Wayne

Wilson, the senior pastor of nearby St. Barnabas Antiochian Orthodox

Church. The subject line read, “something to think about.” It held a

text titled, “1 Corinthians 13, Christmas version (paraphrased).”

Author unknown.

First Corinthians 13 is an often-familiar biblical text that’s

commonly referred to as “the love chapter.” It is popularly recited

at weddings, if not fulfilled in marriages.

The chapter begins, “I may be able to speak the languages of men

and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than

a noisy gong or clanging bell.”

It’s best known lines are found in verses 4 through 8 and 13;

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not

parade itself; is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not

seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in

iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things; believes all

things; hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

And “Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of

these is love.”

Love, St. Paul, the author, seems to say, is the very essence of

life; without love, life is really not life at all.

The Christmas-themed paraphrase of Paul’s letter to the Christians

in Corinth seems to be one of those Internet axioms that appear to

originate nowhere yet arrive everywhere. I Googled the title and

found it on thousands of Web pages.

Typically, these Internet essays are full of misspellings and poor

punctuation, at best. At worst, they wallow in schmaltz over one of

life’s great joys or bliss-out in over-simplicity about one of life’s

great mysteries. They tend to trigger that 1980s gem of Valley-girl

speak -- gag me with a spoon.

This homage to 1 Corinthians, though, is plain spoken, well

spelled and punctuated.

It begins, “If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,

strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls but do not show love to

my family, I’m just another decorator.”

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted

snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the

choir’s cantata but I do not focus on Christ, I have missed the

point.”

Love, it says, “is kind, though harried and tired. Love doesn’t

envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table

linens. Video games will break. Pearl necklaces will be lost. Golf

clubs will rust. But giving the gift of love will endure.”

One night last week I was running some errands in the Christmas

crowds. I saw fenders get bent in parking lots, drivers shouting at

one another. I watched a mother snatch her tired toddler up from a

store floor by the child ‘s little arm. A department store clerk left

me standing at the register because it was time for her to go home.

Two grown men asked me for money for food.

I was hungry and my spirits were ebbing when I still had one more

errand to do. Mid-way through that purchase the cash register

rebelled and wouldn’t complete my transaction. My debit card

information was already entered and there was, apparently, no turning

back. No moving to another register.

The clerk poked at keys on her register. She fidgeted and fussed.

She left to talk to her manager and then to make a phone call.

The register still refused to resume its task. Fifteen minutes.

Twenty five minutes.

Forty five minutes. I was standing there agitated. I needed to get

home.

I closed my eyes and bit my tongue. As I did, I could almost see

the words, “Love is patient. Love is kind, even when harried and

tired.”

A few minutes later the clerk had the register working again. She

handed me my purchases with my receipt. I said, “Thank you.”

“No,” the clerk said quickly. “Thank you. Thank you so much for

your patience.”

How much better I felt as I drove home than I’d have felt if I’d

let my temper flare. No time would have been saved or redeemed. One

clerk and I would have just been a little more harried and much more

tired.

Something to think about.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].