ON THE CORNER OF FOURTH AND WALNUT

Every year I start looking for a Christmas story. Some years they just fall in your lap. Some years they don’t form up until after the New Year. Last year, I didn’t have one at all. I’m going to force it a little this year.

I was at Luby’s last week. There was a couple sitting by the window. They sat across from each other, but it seemed like they were holding feet. Their feet were touching, they were laughing smiling, genuinely enjoying each others company. I went into one of my day dreams. What are they talking about? Certainly Christmas, as it is upon us. Where to hang the lights, how nice the tree looked, going to visit her parents next week, what to get the kids, its such a busy season with relatives coming, what to buy for her brother who is so hard to shop for, the funny guy at the office party, and where did all the money go? All these things crossed my mind inside of ten seconds.

I thought how easy it is to fall in love with people.
That seems to have been the theme this year.
How connected we all are, in spite of our differences.
Someday darlings, everything we know will go to
dust. All we will have left is the joy and smiles we brought to each other.
The enchantment we allowed ourselves to feel. How fabulous it is to put someone in front of yourself.
I don’t know how many times my heart swelled from the simplest gestures I made to the world.
A smile. A thank you. A nod.
To give and give until the giving feels like receiving.

Funny. I had all my shopping done. But I went
again yesterday. Just to be a part of the world.
There was an itsy bitsy girl the big ear muffs with little kitty ears.
A shiny gold jacket with boots to match, and a fabulous glittery purse. I looked down.
“I love your ear muffs “ I said.
She looked so pleased.
It reminded me of the older lady at the Subway, when I commented on her brooch.
“Its lovely” I said.
She smiled and touched it lightly. A gift from her late husband.
It was like she waited all day for someone to say something, and I was so pleased that it could be me.
Now I asked little kitty ears if she was ready for Christmas. “Santa is bringing me lots of presents!” she said.
A true believer.
Being a part of this world. I could do it all day. I was missing for so long.
Of course it doesn’t seem as big today, trying to write it down for you. I can only
hope you already know.

I keep a Thomas Merton in my mind. He does it better.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race … there is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…”

~ Thomas Merton from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander