Feelings
A Talk with God
By Emmanuelle
(Part 2)
They say: it could not be. She surely could not have had a talk with God.
She says: why could this not be? First, see that it could be, before you say it could surely not be. One must breathe in first, before one must breathe out. Or is it the other way around?
Anyway, after she talked or dreamed of a talk with God, she did not know why but she had this urgent need to tell this old, forgotten tale of a child who saw three kings with their gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense for another Child.
As told last week, days before Christmas, she fixes the shelf where the Belen is to be laid out. If she failed to save the props from last year, she builds the set anew. She pads the hard wood with fresh or dried grass. A hut in place of that manger of long ago. A star with a bulb to light up the scene.
Then she takes the wraps off the actors of the play – Joseph, Mary and the Child on a crib. The three magi with their gifts. There should not be less than three camels. If the three magi could afford to give gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense, they could afford to ride on one camel each.
Stand the shepherd with the three kings. There is no caste where He is. He Himself is a King born with His sheep. Sheep! There should be more than one sheep. Lots of sheep! For how can a man or a boy a shepherd be, if he has less sheep?
Stand the shepherd girl with the rest. What, there is no shepherdess?
There was one, though, in that long ago nativity scene. She watched from the sides. She peeped through the slats. One time, she found the guts to stand at the door of the hut.
She almost made it to His crib that time, when she hid amongst the folds of the three kings’ flapping frocks. She looked at their gifts. She shook her head. She thought: they should have sent their Queens in their place. The queens would have brought thick soft wraps instead of gems for the Child. They were right smack in the midst of winter. Have they ices not cells for brains?
Time to time, the girl would hitch up her own rags to coat her from the cold. She would pull the strips of cloths tight round her head and across the lower half of her face. When warmed enough, she would go out to search for her own gift for the Child whom she heard whispered as the Son of God. She could not go far. It was too cold. Even if she had the coins, which she did not, where can she find a gift fit for a God?
She could not even cry. As soon as a tear slipped from her eye, it quavered for just a while, then froze hard before it could drop down her cheek.
She was thus in such a state when an angel happened by. Do they fly high, then swoop and glide then float on air? Or do they just pop out? A puff of feathers, white on wings, with scents and songs?
Well, this angel stayed for a while. And talked to this child. And whisked the snow away with a point of its toes.
And bloomed from the ground, a clump of roses white as snow.
The angel tells the child: it is not the gift of the most precious gems that matter to Him. It is the gift of your self that is. Even these roses are mere symbols of a hope: to try to be as white and as pure as these roses – in your thoughts, in your heart, and in what you do.
And as angels usually do, this one puffed gone. Angels could not possibly linger on air for much longer than always.
The child happily hopped fast back to the hut. Or as fast as frozen legs bound by strips of cloth in place of boots will allow. This time, she made it to the crib.
A child with a gift for another Child. Or was it the other way around?
And they said this storyteller did not have a talk with God? She just could not remember if God gave an answer to her puzzled state. Oh, His must be the whisper echoing in her mind . . .
(Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
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