ALL ON A STARRY NIGHT
December 24, 2006 Candlight Service
The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
There is a Christmas story that I like about a homeless woman named Mae, who lives on the streets of some city in America that could be Canoga Park if it weren’t that there’s snow in the story. Everyone seems to know who Mae is because she’s been surviving on the streets for so long; but nobody seems to care much about her.
The story takes place on Christmas Eve. Mae is wandering the streets as usual; but tonight she’s feeling sick, and is looking for the medical clinic where she’s received help in the past. Unfortunately, she can’t remember where it is, and she’s growing increasingly tired and cold and hungry.
She finally turns into an alley and sits down on the ground, exhausted, and leans against the side door of a building – which someone had apparently left slightly ajar, as when Mae leans against it, it suddenly falls open.
Mae enters and wanders through the darkened building, in hopes that she’s found the clinic. She comes upon a kitchen with food and so sits on the floor and eats a meal.
After that, she begins again exploring the building. She finds the bathroom and some closets; but mostly she sees shelves and shelves of books. It is not the clinic; it’s the city library that she has chanced upon. And on the floor in front of her is a large basket filled with Christmas books.
Mae doesn’t read, so the first book she looks through is one with no words – only pictures of a snowman melting. She picks up some others, but they all have words, so she doesn’t finish them. But then one book catches her attention; it has a picture on the cover of a young mother holding a child. Even though this book has words in it, Mae opens it and turns each page carefully, mesmerized by the pictures of this maiden and her babe, seemingly protected by the stars in the sky above them.
After looking at the pictures several times, Mae finally puts the book down and curls up on the floor to sleep. She’s awakened in the morning by the light of the sun, and quickly finds the door through which she had entered the night before. She walks outside into the alley, and is surprised at how quiet everything has become – there is hardly any sign of city life.
But that’s OK. Because after a full meal and shelter from the cold of night, Mae is feeling much better. She trudges on to nowhere in particular. But in her heart she carries the image of that mother and baby, with all the stars overhead. And it helps her feel less alone.
Mae reminds me of the homeless woman who comes by Emerson periodically; I’ll call her Susan, though that’s not her real name. She comes here because she knows she’ll find a sympathetic ear, and some coupons for meals at local restaurants; KFC seems to be her favorite.
Over the course of the year or so since Susan has been dropping by, I’ve learned quite a bit about her, including the fact that she knows what buildings are more likely to have doors that have been left slightly ajar at night, and what time the cleaning crews leave, so that she can find a bathroom in which to clean up and sleep in safety. I’ve come to appreciate Susan’s survival tactics, her good humor, and her extreme gratitude for whatever help she receives.
But I worry about Susan, and all the other homeless women and men I see on the streets. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to depend “on the kindness of strangers; I can’t imagine the perseverance it must take to trudge through the streets pushing a shopping cart full of all of one’s possessions. But mostly I can’t imagine being able to survive just one winter night outside – even in Southern California.
I am glad Susan knows how to find open doors, and I hope she has images of love to keep her company and bring her courage in these cold times.
I wonder what that tiny child whose birth we celebrate tomorrow would think if he showed up today and saw how many people like Susan are living on the streets in America? Or how much of the world is steeped in war and violence?
The story of Edmund Sears writing “It Came upon the Midnight Clear” is poignant in large part because it is still so relevant today. How are we to talk about the joy and hope of Christmas, when so many people – so many children – are living in desperate situations? How can I stand up here and blithely tell you to have a joy-filled holiday when I know how many human beings throughout the world are being caught up in the violence of war and the injustice of oppression?
A friend visited me from out of town the other day, and read to me from a book he was very excited about; the name of the book is Endgame, by Derrick Jensen. And it was really depressing – at least the part my friend read to me. Mr. Jensen begins by listing all the ways in which our world is hurling towards destruction; and then he says that there is no hope of it getting any better, and that by hoping we’re actually making things worse.
After my friend finished reading, I said, “And why is it you think I’d like this book? (Why would I want to read about how hopeless everything is?) You’ll be happy to know that this is only the first of a three-volume series. Apparently the second volume does give solutions, and the third isn’t published yet; perhaps the author is waiting to see if his solutions work!
But as my friend and I talked further, I realized that what Derrick Jensen was suggesting was that what we often call “hope” may actually be an excuse to do nothing – to rely on God or Allah or some amorphous “healing energy” to cure the world’s ills. But the only real hope lies with us doing whatever we can to heal the brokenness of our world.
I wonder if sometimes I let my need for hope get in the way of real transformation. Hoping for peace is nice, but the only real hope will come when I do everything I can to be at peace within myself, and to create a world without war and hatred.
I can give food coupons to the homeless men and women who come by the church, and I can hope that they find shelter from the cold; but the only real hope will come when I do everything I can to create adequate resources for them here in the Valley, and to end the causes of homelessness and poverty.
I can lament how the earth is decaying, and I can watch Al Gore’s movie about Global Warming and even buy the book…but the only real hope will come when I do everything I can to reverse the damage that’s been done, and create a balance between human needs and the needs of the earth.
The best antidote for hopelessness and helplessness is action – even if the action we take seems small. That was the message of Jesus of Nazareth; it was the message of the good reverend, Dr. Sears; and it is the message still today of poets and prophets. Perhaps it is even the message sent to us from the stars above.
As we walk out into the night in a few minutes, where we will stand together with our candles lighting up the darkness, let us take a moment to gaze up at the starry sky. Let us remember that the stars shining down on us this Christmas Eve are the same stars that have shined on the children in Darfur; they are the same stars that have shined on our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the innocent citizens in those tiny countries. Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Middle East have stood in awe at these same stars; and the people on skid row have looked up and gazed at them as well.
We are all “embraced” by the stars – held in a web of life that cannot be broken, no matter how hard humanity seems to try. And our calling as a people of faith – as a people of great compassion and commitment – is to remain acutely aware of that web, and do whatever we can to keep that web alive. Our calling is to help transform our world so that the message of that tiny baby born so long ago will finally be realized in every corner of the earth, by every living thing; so that one day, we will all be able to say, “without shyness or apology or hesitation: Peace my brother; Peace my sister; Peace my soul.”
Alleluia!
© 2006 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
