A Christmas Story

Note: the story that follows was written quite a while ago by a good friend, Herman de Jong. He has passed on now, where, in heaven above, he's in rapture by the pure, perfect music of Christmas.
Since it was originally written in Dutch, I've translated and adapted it for this Blog.


“From Heaven Above”

It happened a long time ago and far away: 1944, in Holland. I was 12, and it was the day before Christmas. My best friend was Johnny who had become my neighbor a few months earlier. Our parents became friends too, even though the Lefferts were Roman Catholics and my parents were Reformed.

Johnny had invited me to come to early mass with him on Christmas Day. I wanted to go, of course, and begged my parents for permission. But my father didn’t like the idea. To be friends was okay, but to attend each other’s church was more than friends had the right to expect from each other. Mother finally persuaded Dad to let me go, since I would be back in time to attend our own church service.

At five o’clock on Christmas morning, Johnny and I ran through the flurrying snow. Johnny was wearing a new pair of high shoes for the special occasion, while I wore my ordinary wooden shoes; Mom said they’d be warmer. Since the snow packed well this morning, we decided to see who could pack the most snow under his shoes. We slowed down, and carefully, step by step, we tried to get as much to stick as possible. I kept winning, since snow sticks better to wood than to leather.

But Johnny didn’t like losing. He kept trying harder and harder, until it dawned on him that I was winning because of my klompen. “I could easily beat you if I had klompen too,” he said. I didn’t agree, of course. In fact, I challenged him to give me his shoes and I’d show him I could still beat him.

So it happened that on the way to early mass, two cold but proud little fellows sat down in the snow to exchange their footwear. But before we could continue the Christmas Day competition, a large Catholic family caught up with us. One of the girls called out, “Hey, Johnny, you better hurry, ‘cause the service starts in five minutes and you still have to change to your choir robe. We’re late too, ‘cause Mommy overslept.”

We ran the rest of the way till the cathedral loomed straight ahead through the early morning shadows. Black figures hurried over the white snow and then under the yellow glow of the gas lanterns that lined the sidewalk. “You have to go through the big door,” panted Johnny, “I have to go through the door of the sacristy ‘cause I have to sing in the choir.”

I followed the crowd through the big doors and landed in the narthex of the packed church. Behind an ornate railing stood a group of Protestant visitors, jostling each other for the best view of what was to come.

As for myself, I stood close to the entrance and watched people dip their hands in a little bowl and then quickly make the sign of the cross. Without thinking, I decided to participate too, but the tall man with a terribly long nose (I can still see the drip hanging at its end) hissed at me: “Keep your hands out of there, you’re not Catholic, are you?” I have always wondered whether “Mr. Nose” was Catholic or Protestant.

Thoroughly frightened, I quickly pulled back among the visiting Protestants and wormed my way gradually to the railing. Just in time too. A Santa Claus type stood before the altar and bowed so low that his nose must have nearly touched the floor. But I didn’t see Johnny anywhere. All of a sudden I remembered that he was still wearing my clogs. At least his feet were warm; my toes in Johnny’s icy shoes were freezing. I wanted to jump up and down to warm them a bit, but the memory of “Mr. Nose” kept me quietly standing in place.

I almost jumped, though, when the organ suddenly started. The music was terribly loud; no wonder--I was standing right under the pipes. The people in the sanctuary rose and began to sing. I didn’t recognize the tune, but I remember clearly what a tremendous impression that music made on me. The sound seemed to climb along the whited walls, higher and higher, only to cascade down again and rejoin the leading melody. I stood entranced, and I shivered, more from the music, I think, than from the cold.

That must’ve been my first experience of beauty—an aesthetic experience, as they call it. I don’t remember much of the mass itself. I didn’t understand the strange language nor the strange rituals among what I thought of then as the Santa Claus figures. Besides, I was too cold, and the whole service seemed much too long. It was what happened toward the end of it that I have remembered so clearly through all these years.

The organ played again, very softly now, and then a clear girl-soprano voice rang through the cathedral. I noticed that all around me people began to listen with rapt attention to the beautiful melody of “From heaven above to earth I come.”

I held my breath. The pure, delicate voice of the singer seemed to fill that whole immense cathedral. It seemed to float through space like a fine-bodied swallow. It bounced off the walls and as the notes went higher it seemed to disappear into the vaulted dome and out into the outside air until it became an angel choir of glorious music. I don’t know how to explain it exactly; it’s hard to find words for such feelings. But it filled me with such great gladness that I wanted to run with the shepherds over the hills around Bethlehem, arms flailing like a windmill, faster and faster, to see Jesus, my Jesus.

After the service I waited for Johnny at the door of the sacristy. “How did you like it?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my answer but pulled me inside. Beneath a candle-lit statue of Mary we exchanged our footwear. I followed his example when he crossed himself. “You didn’t need to do that,” said my friend, “you aren’t Catholic, are you?”

A couple of days later Johnny was terribly sick with pneumonia. He had kicked off my klompen and in his wet socks had followed the bishop into church. And there he had stood, on the stone floor, throughout the long service.

I moped around the house, feeling guilty about Johnny’s illness and resentful that my best friend had to get sick during Christmas vacation. We prayed for him at mealtimes, and I noticed that Dad’s prayers became increasingly more urgent.

One day, Mrs. Lefferts, pale and fatigued from many nights of interrupted and uneasy sleep, stopped by. Johnny wanted me to come over. “Is Johnny getting better, then?” I asked eagerly. Softly she answered, “With God all things are possible. Please come along quickly.”

I didn’t know what to say at first when I got there. Johnny was so weak; he could hardly speak. After a while I told him about the girl’s solo and how beautiful I thought it had been. “That was no girl,” whispered Johnny, “listen to this.” As he began to sing, very softly, I heard the same voice, the same melody. I couldn’t believe it. When he finished there was mischief gleaming in his eyes. “Well?” he asked. His voice was so soft now, I hardly heard him. But I tried to tell him something then of what I had felt during his singing that Christmas morning.

When I finished, he reached out a thin, pale hand. Impulsively and self-consciously at the same time, I took his hand in mine, and I whispered that I prayed for him and that I was sure Jesus would make him well again. I felt the pressure from his hand as he whispered back, “From heaven above to earth he came….”

Jesus did make Johnny well again. We stayed friends for a long time till finally we moved too far away from each other. But I’ve never forgotten Johnny. And I’ve often thought that the whole Christmas event became real to me in that breathless moment when I followed that graceful swallow far beyond the cathedral. It was at that moment that I knew without the slightest doubt that Jesus came as a Child for me and that as a Man he had to die for me. And when in bygone years I sometimes had to struggle through thoughts and experiences that shook my faith, I always returned through my memory to that place and to that moment when my white-knuckled hand hung on to the wrought-iron railing, and a gentle Savior made me hear again that pure girl-soprano voice: “From heaven above to earth I come!”

Thanksgiving

It looks like God blesses some more than others.
Some rarely see a doctor or a psychiatrist.
Some enjoy a happy marriage and family, achieve professional distinctions, have many stimulating friends, and lead an exciting and rewarding life.
Others are seldom without pain, want but never find a suitable marriage partner, never graduate from that mundane job, rarely enjoy the attention and company of others.

Yet those more blessed are not necessarily more grateful.
In fact, it may be more difficult for the highly favored to experience true gratitude.
For gratitude is not the invariable consequence of health, happiness, and prosperity.
Genuine gratitude is, rather, a condition of the heart.

I remember a short film I’ve seen several times, a poignant documentary that gives us a glimpse in the life of Leo Beuermann, a twisted dwarf of a man.
At first glance Leo strikes one as grotesque in his deformity, plagued by so many physical disabilities that one is likely to think of him as both helpless and hopeless.
But he was neither.
He lived each day with courage, dignity, and faith.
Though his afflictions were many and severe, he lived out of a grateful hearty that was constantly tuned to the mercy of God.

Gratitude is more than a prayer of thanks on Thanksgiving Day, or any other day.
It is essentially a way of living, a life style impelled by the heart’s response to the constancy of God’s goodness and grace.

We need to pray for such a heart, as did George Herbert centuries ago:

Thou that hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more—a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

from "Talking with God"

I Believe

I believe.

But why?
Because I was baptized, raised in a Christian home, educated in Christian schools, studied the catechism, was active in church youth groups, and included prayer and Bible reading in my formative years?

Perhaps.

But life’s journey is often rough.
The fabric of faith gets torn.
It can unravel.
More than once it nearly did.

Yet I believe.
For there is beauty beyond description of tongue or pen.
And there is evil no human power can overcome.
And there were Dante and Milton and Shakespeare.
And Bach and Mozart and Handel.
And Mother Theresa and Smedes and Yancey.

Yes, I believe.
For there was a cloud of witnesses in the place I worked.
And a great company of saints in the church I worshipped.

But most of all, I believe, because one starlit night,
a Baby was born, pure and perfect, whose name was Jesus.
It’s the power and glory of his Life, and Death, that changes mine.
It’s the Truth of his words I wish to live by.
It’s his Way that leads through the valley to God that I must walk.

This I believe.

Veteran's Day: More WWII Memories

In a few weeks it will be Veteran’s Day.
A day for all to remember and honor those who paid the ultimate price exacted by freedom.
A day to weep for the evil among us that chooses war rather than peace, that chooses to destroy life rather than to make it flourish.
And a day to pray that “war may be no more,” and that peacemakers may be blessed.
***
One day the young boy saw planes falling out of the sky. And bodies falling out of the plane. Because there was war in the sky too.
Dozens of bombers were flying high overhead, escort planes circling around them constantly like sheepdogs.
Then he saw the German planes suddenly appear out of nowhere and racing fast to get to the bombers before they’d be spotted. Three got tangled up into dogfights with Allied planes before they could penetrate.
He stood there, hardly breathing, as he watched the planes chasing each other, like a dog chasing a rabbit, shooting at each other, and then one got hit and there was smoke and the plane came tumbling out of the sky and he saw a parachute come floating down too.
But then he watched with horror as two enemy fighter planes got to a straggling bomber. The bomber crew didn’t have a chance.
He saw puffs of smoke and the bomber went out of control and no parachutes came out and the plane looked like it was going to come down right on top of him and two other bombers now were hit too and hurtling down, and he stood frozen to the spot as the first plane plunged into the ground less than a mile away.
Twelve Allied Air Force soldiers were buried in the churchyard of his town.
***
Years later the boy, now adult, visited Margraten in the southern part of the Netherlands.
He walked among the 8300 American soldiers who lie buried there, young vibrant lives cut down by a crazed enemy that sought to destroy the freedom of others.
He wept for those lost lives and their loved ones who never held them again.

And then he remembered the young boy who one day after the war, on his way home from school, encountered an old white-bearded gentleman walking toward him, asking directions to the cemetery to visit his son’s grave.
And he remembered the belt buckle he had found in the burned-out wreckage of the airplane that he and his friends sneaked into when the German guards weren’t looking.
He had kept it for a long time. And every time he had held it in his hands, he remembered the feeling and the smell of death inside that ruined hulk.

For that’s what war is all about: death.

Childhood Memories of WWII

I woke up that May-day morning
from intimations of immortality
to the sounds and sin of World War II.

Behind me were five years of hazy bliss
of much innocence and memories few,
before me lay five years of fear
and a life-time of experience
whose recollections have the power
to haunt me still this year.

I remember now the bright-blue, spring-sprung sky
smeared suddenly with swastikas on gleaming wings,
the angry droning of a thousand warplanes
silencing the sounds of music from hedge and trees.

I remember now that father prayed that day
for God to help us all, to save our land.
But Hitler’s mighty forces had their way.
My little world became unsafe, and fear
moved in, a pallid and unwanted resident.

I remember now the man wanted alive or dead
for whom we made a hiding place.
One day the Germans came to cross our land.
My friend and I stood watching through the glass
when I saw a strange expression on his face,
when I saw a revolver in his hand,
to shoot himself, I wondered, or the enemy?
The soldiers skipped our door, thank God,
but I was terrified.

I remember now my mother on her bicycle,
side bags bulging with papers from the underground
she would deliver on her special paper route
while I feared constantly that she’d be caught
and we would never see her face again.

I remember now the deadly dogfights in the air,
the Allied bombers smoking, hurtling down
so close to us, I thought we would get hit.

Later friends and I sneaked inside the burned-out hulk,
where I smelled death of the 12-men crew,
found buttons, belt-buckles, a first-aid kit,
a half-burned boot, mementos of the men
who were buried in the village churchyard
far from their native soil.

I remember now the power of the flying bomb,
the German V-twos sent to London
as a hoped-for coup d’état.
This one fell not far from us
and left a crater deep and wide
enough to drop a house in.

I remember now the protest day when
farmers spilled their milk upon the ground
instead of shipping to the factory.
And Germans eager to retaliate
grabbed some townsfolk here and there,
and lined them up; they were shot and killed,
all sixteen of them, execution-style, then
thrown into a mass grave, as of no account.
One was a boy only four years older than I was.

I remember now on liberation day
when the forces of the underground
came to pick up collaborators with the enemy,
including dad and son whose land lay next to us.
When these refused to come outside,
their captors tossed a hand grenade.
Then they went in and found
the father dead with a bullet in his head,
the mother dead from the hand grenade,
only the wounded son survived; his hands were bound,
and then he stood before the crowd
whose wartime anger, long pent up,
was now unleashed; some slapped his face,
others spat upon him, all taunted him
who had just lost his dad and mom;
and these were good Christian folk.

I remember now the day
I met a man from far away,
walking down the main street of our town;
his hair was thin and white, his beard was long.
He asked how he might find the way
to the gravesite of his only son.
I showed him where the churchyard was,
but I did not invite him home with me,
I did not seat him in our best chair,
find the prettiest cup and saucer on the shelf
and make some tea for him.
I did not invite all the war’s survivors
of the town to come and thank this man,
thank this broken father for what his son had done;
for I was too young then and did not think of that.
But I would like to thank him now,
and all the others who gave more
than what we ever have a right to ask.

We learned while very young
that there is evil in the human heart;
the dreams of innocence were shattered,
we always looked through broken glass.
Even after 70 years, our vision has not been restored.
For some there’s only hope, grounded in faith,
that there will be a day, when face to face
we will know as we are known,
and shalom will have come at last.

Summer Beauty in the Mountains

This memory goes back to a mid-summer day in July.
I still hear the words:
“Dad, when I die I want to be buried here.”

She startled me out of my reverie that summer day, high up in the Cascades.
I turned to her and saw a vigorous, vital youngster full of the spice of life.
But her thoughtful face expressed a peace and wisdom far beyond her nine years.

Our family had hiked up a mountain trail.
We had come as strangers,
our ears tuned to the sounds of cars and commerce,
our eyes trained to spot traffic signs.
But nature slowly embraced and re-educated us.
As we moved away from the din of highways, we began to listen to the sounds of birds calling to birds,
of woodpeckers drumming on dead trees,
of water sometimes trickling and flowing down like lace,
sometimes rushing and leaping out boldly into space,
shattering upon rocks below in a rainbow spray.
We began to note the variegated shades of barks and ferns,
the spirea growing in the underwood,
the occasional canopies of devil’s club and clusters of columbine.
We began to smell the forest scents of stately firs and decaying plant life.
And we began to walk more softly through a hushed cathedral of evergreens,
to speak more softly,
till at last we were quiet altogether,
yielding to the peace and silence all around us.

When we reached the edge of trees and ferns, we saw before us at some distance the snowfields rising to a flattened dome.
Though we were surely not mountain climbers,
there, above the shadows of forests and sounds of tumbling streams,
face to face with a mountain,
we felt something of the mountaineer’s wordless exhilaration.

Another trail invited us to climb higher, and soon we came upon a scene that took our breath away:
we had reached the alpine meadows,
a gentle slope ablaze with colorful drifts of wild flowers and heather,
dotted with patches of lingering snow.
We stood in the presence of great beauty,
inside a garden of our Father’s world,
where we felt the awesome mystery and majesty of God Himself.

There in the mountain meadows,
a place of tranquility among rugged mountain peaks and hanging glaciers,
a profound silence wrapped around our souls.
And in that silence, the voice of God spoke:
of the foolishness of pride,
of the insensitivity to the invisible relationship between self and nature,
of the propensity to let the world be too much with us and within us.
And, at the foot of a mighty mountain,
it spoke to us of time and the frailty and transience of human life.
But the voice induced no fear, only conviction and serenity.

The thought of death, too, held no terror.
Perhaps death terrifies most when we feel most distant from the essence of life,
when we are most preoccupied with the trivial,
when we are most alienated from the mystery and majesty of God,
when we are most inattentive to the creative forces that make mountains and wild flowers,
when we are most resistant to God’s Spirit which, in Christ, would make us new.

But here we experienced the voice of Him who says:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
And that voice filled us with peace and awe.

My daughter and I looked at each other.
Then she looked away, at nature’s profusion around us, and she said again,
“I’d like to be buried here when I die.”

And I knew what she meant.

Unbroken

I grew up in WW II, the enemy and its readiness to kill in view nearly every day.

Maybe that explains my life-long interest in war literature and film, each well-crafted tale reinforcing and deepening my revulsion to war.
War, I’m convinced, must have all the devils dancing in hell with glee, confident that it will turn many a warrior into a devil too.
 
No book has brought that home to me as painfully and unforgettably as did Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Were it fiction, it would still have been a memorable read, though I would’ve dismissed some characters and events as simply too incredible.  But it is fact, and fact, we know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. In this case, it took me into the heart of darkness so relentlessly and graphically that I could hardly disentangle myself from its terrors between readings.

 
Yes, war is about death-defying acts of courage.  About giving one’s life for another. But also about taking a life from another. About danger and fear so unremitting and intense that it can inflict life-long psychic damage. About demonic acts of cruelty that destroy one’s dignity and break the human spirit.  

More than anything, of course, war is about people. Like Louis Zamperini, an Olympic long-distance runner, becoming a long-distance bombardier in the war against Japan.  If it’s possible for one to die many deaths, Louie does: on bombing missions, crashing into the vast Pacific, drifting in a leaky raft for nearly fifty days, falling into the brutal hands of Japanese prison guards who inflicted daily beatings and torture and near starvation.

But somehow Louie survives, in a badly damaged body, and with a plague of horrific memories that unravel his spirit.  His descent into the depths of inhumanity has been too steep and prolonged. Neither the adulation of the nation, nor the love of family, nor the love of a beautiful wife can put Louis Zamperini together again. 

Only the love of God can – and does.  Profound and inexplicable. And unforgettable. As it always is when grace makes its amazing entry.

At the end, this reader, too, felt blessed.