David Heiller
Dear Grandma:
I guess it’s that time
again, to tell you about the kids’ Christmas program last Sunday.
The Sunday School crew did
“real fine,” as you would say. For a while though, it looked like the halos and
crowns would come crashing down, bringing the entire kindergarten class along.
It started with Kimberly’s
halo, a heavy wire shaped to fit around her head, then bent into another circle
up above and covered with tinfoil. The thing worked for a while. Maybe three minutes.
Then Kim figured out that this fancy halo was nothing more than a coat hanger digging
into her skull.
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| Grandma O and Malika and what they both loved: each other and Christmas treats |
Only Brandi had the will power
not to touch her crown, and she did that by folding her hands together and keeping
them firmly squeezed between her knees.
The Sjoblom Boys held down
the front row. Jacob arrived with the sniffles, after Mona had told me before the
service that he was having kittens in the Pastor’s office. But he soon managed a
stiff upper lip, and the kittens never arrived!
His older brother, Isaac, had
an even better weapon than tears in his arsenal. First he leaned his head up against
the iron railing that leads to the altar, rolled his eyes, and sighed. Next, he
turned around and visited with the second row of kids through the slats on the back
of his chair. Then he bent way over until Isaac reached over to touch the bare skin
he had exposed to the congregation. That made him sit back up. Missy tried her best
again, but with Mom standing helplessly at the back of the church, Isaac simply
shook his head slowly at her, leaned it back up against the railing, rolled his
eyes, and sighed.
A better weapon indeed! Is
there any more pure torture for parents than to see their kids shake their heads
at their teachers, while all Mom and Dad can do is sit and watch? And in church,
for crying out loud.
But it made sense in a way.
In his sermon, Pastor Sjoblom, better known as Daddy to Isaac and Jacob, had told
us to get EXCITED about salvation. Well, maybe Isaac was just taking his advice.
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| Noah and Malika and some Christmas magic. |
We witnessed acts of courage
at the program too. Take Chrissy and Joey, singing solos into a microphone before
a full church of staring adults. How many soldiers or ditch-diggers or editors could
do that?
Or the courage to stand up
and say their lines, after practicing them at the supper table and in the car for
the past three weeks. But they remembered, just like we did and Mom did and you
probably did too. Some things don’t change much.
“They didn’t call it Christmas,
but they knew someone was coming,” Mollie said with a grin at the fourth pew, where
we sat.
“Rejoice greatly, oh daughter
of Zion, shout aloud, oh daughter of Jerusalem. Lo, your king comes to you,” Noah
said. He didn’t look at us, because he didn’t want to smile. You could see he was
trying hard not to, the way he held his mouth. But we all smiled, and puffed but
our chests, and Grandma Olson brushed at her eyes.
Did you get tingles up your
spine over a few sentences from us, standing in front of the church 30 years ago?
I did on Sunday. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s one of those great theological mysteries,
like why God made mosquitoes and woodticks.
Maybe you know that answer now.
I sure don’t, but I don’t want to either, because then these feelings might stop,
and that would indeed be a tragedy.
So we—the whole congregation,
mind you—sat and watched and beamed and sang and cried and even tingled, and when
it came time for Joy to the World, I thought, “This is
indeed a time to let heaven and nature sing, because children ARE the wonders of
His love.”
Love, David
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