Once Again, the Star, the Shepherds

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Old Man Christmas (moi) has been out shopping and found a shop that sells hiking shoes so, being married to a hiker, I went in and saw beautiful alligator boots, also a pair of sharkskin, and wouldn’t this be perfect for my beloved venturing into ungenteel neighborhoods, boots made from man-eating creatures, better than pepper spray or a Smith & Wesson, but the pricetag was staggering –– I’m the son of a postal clerk –– so I moved on. I went to Macy’s on 34th Street just to ride the wooden escalator and hear it clunking and I roamed past perfume counters but was distracted by the stunning beauties behind the counters, women who’d come to the city to become fashion models but were only 5”11” and were overweight at 117 lbs. and so were relegated to retail sales and now at 22 they’re over the hill.

It made me sad, the abandoned dreams –– you see it everywhere –– and I left the store and went to the public library on 42nd and sat in the Rose Reading Room and came back to my senses. My beloved and I have merged two. Domiciles into one and we are still in a deaccessionizing process and don’t need a pile of gifts under a tree. I’ll put some cash in envelopes for our building’s doormen and super and send some to little kids I know and a $100 bill to a few friends so they can buy a good bottle of champagne, not a chintzy one.

I did a show in New York a couple weeks ago and at the end I had the audience sing “Silent Night,” the verse about calmness and brightness and also the shepherds and heavenly hosts and then we hummed a verse which, a capella, was so tender and haunting and beautiful, I saw people dabbing at their eyes, but at the same time I knew I was out on a limb, it being New York, there being so many unbelievers in the crowd and –– Hello? It's New York? The handclapping to “Chanukah O Chanukah” an hour before told you that the Bernsteins and Brusteins and Blooms were in the house, and had they paid $109.50, to attend a Lutheran service? I don’t think so but I’m not going to speak for them.

They all knew the words: this came through clearly. Maybe they were Orthodox Chasidim from Crown Heights but they knew “Silent Night” and you can call it colonial acculturation but it sounded authentic to me and my purpose was only to give them the pleasure of joining a 1500-voice choir, a rare privilege in our fragmented society, wary people edging away from each other, and shouldn’t each of us at least once a year consider the possibility that the Creator of the Universe of galaxies known and unknown billions of light years away should come to this tiny insignificant planet in the form of an infant in order to better understand us mortal beings? It’s beyond our understanding but then so is the Universe.

In return, I will consider that maybe the Chasidim are right and I have wasted a great deal of time listening to sermons on the Pauline epistles.

I do believe in the Christmas story, that God put his omnipotence on a shelf and became an infant child—it’s in keeping with Christ telling his disciples, “What you do for the least of these, ye do for me.” I believe, except for the three wise guys. How they snuck in is a mystery. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh are not suitable gifts for a newborn. Three wise women would’ve brought something useful and arrived in time to help deliver the infant, make supper, and clean the stable.

The Christian faith has given us plenty of Jerks and they’ve been running rampant recently, bands of Visigoths lying about our democratic institutions, trying to pillage, and I consider the quiet communal “Silent Night” some compensation for the trouble they’ve caused. My daughter was born a few days after Christmas 26 years ago and I’ll always remember the calmness and brightness of that December. I have been a quaking shepherd ever since. All I can tell you is “Hark.” If you’ve neglected harking, it’s never too late to resume. Look around. Listen. There are no flashing amber lights at shepherd crossings and the FAA tracks aviation, not angelic beings. Forget the snowman and the reindeer. Santa is preposterous. The Cratchits are sort of creepy. But there are radiant beams if you look for them.

Garrison Keillor © 12.25.23