The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

On a trip home from Dan’s parents one Christmas Eve, we were listening to NPR and heard a story that reshaped my thoughts about Christmas and its destination.

The story was about a children’s author who spent a semester in the Kentucky mountains as an artist in residence.  Her name was Carmen Deedy and she wrote fables and books that helped children value themselves for who they were.  Books like  “The Rooster Who Would Not be Quiet” and “Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach”.

The story Deedy told that Christmas Eve on NPR was about how she had grown to love the children during her time with them in their remote community. She was struck by the people’s resilience and tenacity in the face of poverty and isolation and was surprised at how hard she found it to leave them and go back to her home in Georgia. On the last day of classes before Christmas break, she and the students gathered to say good-bye to each other. One of the little boys took her aside and told her he had a gift for her. She said he reached in his pocket and pulled out a beautiful stone that was lined with fools gold and mica. When he handed it to her he told her that he had walked a mile and a half to the mine to get it for her.  She looked down and noticed that even this far into the fall, he was shoe-less. She was overwhelmed and in some ways embarrassed by the effort he had made to give her the gift.  The author said she looked at him and exclaimed , “Oh my goodness, you did not have to do that for me. That was a very long walk.” To which the little boy said in all sincerity, “Oh, but Carmen Deedy, the walked was part of the gift.”

The journey of Christmas is part of the gift.  In this season when we are asked to stay safe and stay home, there are still many journeys that have brought us to this time and place. Some filled with anticipation and some filled with dread.  Some we made together and some we made alone, but we have all journeyed to get to where we are and our walk has been part of the gift.

Having worked with young people throughout my ministry, I have tried to help them understand the joy of traveling with Jesus through life as opposed to doing whatever they wanted to do and have a come to Jesus moment just in time to make it over the finish-line of life. For some the goal of calculating the timing of the journey precisely makes them believe they had it all figured out. How do you have it both ways.  Live a life that is centered on out-smarting the cosmic system and yet using the Jesus card to make sure they are safe in the end.

It reminds me of the words from the Blood, Sweat and Tears song,” And When I Die”. “I can swear there ain’t no heaven but I pray there ain’t no hell.”  Balancing the denial of something beyond ourselves, with the language of hope in the face of fear is such a gamble. One I found hard to explain to people who were unwilling to take the risk. Even in the song, when he talked about hell, the songwriter used the language of faith.  He prayed there was no hell.

In contrast, those who understand that the impact of the Christian experience is one of walking may stop and rest along the way, but there is something just over the horizon that beckons them. It is not a destination, it is the walk of the journey that sustains us. Sometimes we walk together and sometimes alone, but we always walk with the assurance that Jesus walks with us.

This story helped me to put into words the “why” of the journey.

Why did Mary have to travel to Bethlehem on the back of a donkey nine months pregnant? I am still not sure of that one, but it may have had something to do with Mary and Joseph having to depend on each other and giving them a chance to become a family away from all the community speculation and opinions.

The shepherds faithful journey, always makes me smile. They never left their sheep.  That was they job, but it was hard to resist a good story brought by a bright light and an angel. Their retelling of the story around the campfires would reach far and wide and permeate their families and communities for generations.

Why did the scholarly men who may not have even known each other travel for miles headed toward the unknown to see the unknowable? Could it have been that their witness would hold weight with people like Herod and other learned people in ways that a shepherd’s tale or the family birth announcement from a local teenage couple would not have garnered?

Families, communities and governments have been impacted for 2000 years by those who understood that the walk was part of the gift.

How to we help people understand that to walk with Jesus throughout our whole journey is not just part of the gift, it could very well be the Gift.

Hallelujah