by Louis Cassels
"Once
upon a time there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug. He
wasn’t a Scrooge. He was a kind and decent person, generous to his family,
upright in all his dealings with others. But he didn’t believe all that
stuff about Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas.
And he was too
honest to pretend that he did. "I am truly sorry to distress you," he
told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. "But I simply cannot
understand this claim that God becomes man. It doesn’t make any sense to
me."
On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church for the
midnight service. He declined to accompany them. "I’d feel like a
hypocrite," he explained. "I’d rather stay at home. But I’ll wait up
for you."
Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to
fall. He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and
heavier. "If we must have Christmas," he thought, "it’s nice to
have a white one."
He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to
read his newspaper. A few minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. It
was quickly followed by another, then another.
He thought that someone must be
throwing snowballs at his living room window. When he went to the front door to
investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the storm.
They had
been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly
through his window. "I can’t let these poor creatures lie there and
freeze," he thought. "But how can I help them?" Then he
remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide a
warm shelter.
He put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the
deepening snow to the barn. He opened the door wide and turned on a light. But
the birds didn’t come in. "Food will lure them in," he thought. So he
hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to
make a trail into the barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs
and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow.
He tried shooing them into
the barn by walking around and waving his arms. They scattered in every
direction - except into the warm lighted barn.
"They find me a strange
and terrifying creature," he said to himself, "and I can’t seem to
think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird
myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety ..."
Just
at that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood silent for a while,
listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then he sank to
his knees in the snow. "Now I do understand," he whispered. “Now I
see why You had to do it."
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