Talking Parrots And Other Christmas Gifts

We pray you will enjoy this simple gift – 
the introduction to Father Skipper’s book,
A Toy Truck for a Marine and Other Christmas Tales
from A Simple Missionary Priest

Have you ever wondered about God?

I don't mean prayed.  Or even thought about God the way that theologians do with their strangely abstract ideas such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  But wondered - jumped into the awe and mystery of God, trying to sort Him out and make sense of God.

(Oh, and you'll pardon me, please, if I can Him "Him," but that's the way it turns out - when I begin to wonder about God.)

The ancient Jews of the time of our first Christmas wondered about God.  Wondering, you see, is very important.  When you think... Well, thinking is just plain thinking.  It really does not change you very much.  But wondering... When you wonder you try to explore - to know, to come more and more deeply in touch, in tune, to feel with - what you are wondering about.  Wondering, really wondering is part of falling in love.

And so, ancient Jews used to wonder about God - just so they could love Him more.

They wondered about time for God, and decided that there was no past and there will be no future for God - that everything is now.  Isn't that a great idea?  It means that if you don't like what is happening now, you can go to another now that seems to suit you better.  Just think about it:  All the bad times are forever, but so are all the good times, too.

And, we are told, they wondered about why God created us.  It was, they realized, because He - God - was so lonely.  It must have been difficult to be God before He made us.  All alone up there - out there, wherever - without anyone to talk to or laugh with.

As I thought about all of this, I began to wonder about God and Christmas and creation.

I got to thinking about just how hard it must be for God for Christmas to be all the time, and to wondering about what He did for Christmas presents. I mean, just the hours that he had to spend shopping and wrapping would probably keep a couple of lesser gods busy full time.

(I'll bet my sister and my mother really like this idea of God - always shopping.  Why, there's a God after their own hearts.)

But think about it.  Our first Christmas had already been happening for centuries of centuries for God when it finally happened for us.

Imagine the shopping lists that God has to go through.  Of course, the first Christmas was easy.  After all, your own private star.

From that point on, however, things began to get complicated - even for God.   And so there came talking birds, that laugh and sing and call their owners by name, so that the Christ Child might learn all the better to speak.  For, if one day He was going to teach "Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called the children of God" and "Blessed are the merciful...," He had better learn to speak at an early age.

And candied apples.  You mean you didn’t know?  Yes - God.  He thought candied apples would be a great idea for the Child's sixth birthday in our time.  After all, the apple had had such a bad rap up to that point.  Besides, the year before God had invented oranges all juicy and sticky and wondrous to peel and squeeze on a fall afternoon as boys played in the hillsides of Galilee. So, the candied apple seemed like an all-round good idea for our Christmas number six.

And mangoes. Truth is that with mangoes God figured he had scored so well that he actually considered mangoes a century-worth of gifts. Besides, the best mangoes of all are beautifully golden. 

One of my favorites was the Christmas when God got God-time and Man-time all mixed-up and, thinking somehow the soon-to-be 14 years-old Jesus could use some new clothes for His birthday (Parents always want to give teenagers clothes for birthdays, even when they're God), the Father made old, well-worn, comfortable blue jeans and Topsiders.

There were other Christmases in God's time and in ours - each with special gifts.  Gifts given to His Son, our brother.  Gifts given to lift the burden of God's loneliness.  To fill the heart of a child born in a stable and grown to manhood as a teacher and a friend.

Why, one year the father suddenly realized that while summer afternoons spent swimming with friends were fun and laughter-filled, how much better they might be if there were just something more.  And so, for a very special Christmas, on the eighth day, God created tropical fish - parrot and clown and zebra fish, fish of every design imaginable, small and large, quick and slow - and tropical reefs with coral and color.   And God saw that it was very good.

Oh, yes and laughter, and the light in children's eyes, the candle's flicker on the cheeks of your lover, the gentleness of a touch, and the words "I love you."

You mean you did not know?  Why, of course.  They're all Christmas gifts - some given in God-time and some in our time.

Please do not think my wonderings to be strange.  After all, isn't God our Father, as well as the Heavenly Father of the Child whose birth we celebrate this night.  And doesn't He wish us only that which is good?

You see, in reality our God is a God - a Father - of little gifts.  Of course, there was the Star.  But ever since, well maybe except for elephants and giraffes, he has always been a God of little gifts. Little gifts and Christmas.  

Why Christmas?  Because God has always wanted to be Father.  And talking birds and coral reefs, candied apples and comfortable, old, torn blue jeans stained by the run off of juicy oranges and mangoes - these are all His little gifts.  

Gifts made real for the Son whom He, this night, gives to us; gifts made real for us because His Son has come this night, born in a stable, as Brother and Lord, Prince of Peace, and Wonder Counselor.

You see, when we begin to understand God as Father and the Giver of Little Gifts, all of life becomes Christmas - every hour, day and moment.  And all life offers - stubbed toes, tooth aches, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, button down shirts, and Hurricane football games, tears and laughter, families and friends, pain and sorrows, joys and hopes, birth and death and Resurrection.  All become the Little Gifts of the Christmas of the present moment.

At least that's the way it seems to me - when I wonder about God and time and creation and Christmas.

Merry Christmas