Christmas is NOT Just for Christians

As a Christian, I take the opposing view and encourage all to enjoy our Christmas festivities. We celebrate the miracle birth of the Savior of all mankind. Believe or choose not to believe, the celebration is in honor of He who offers salvation to each and every one of us. Wrap it up in tinsel and bows, blazen it in brilliant strings of light, carry it and spread it about from Santa's sack, kneel in humilty and reverent awe or join in from your place of wonderment and disbelief. I am assured that He welcomes all who attend His celebration.

I hustled to the bus stop yesterday evening after picking up the last items I needed for dinner. I saw a small, dark-haired, grandmotherly woman sitting there glancing about her area. As I approached, she looked up and caught my eye. Gesturing about with a beaming smile and animated hands she called my attention to the light and power poles at the intersection.

"Where are they here?" The decorations? There are none for here?" Her hands, her face and her energy moved about quickly and earnestly.

"Why are they not here?" she asked in a thick accent.

I considered she might be from the Ukraine. There were many from the former Soviet Union living in the neighborhood where we waited. I considered she might be Catholic and would therefore obviously expect the pomp and ceremony attendant to Christmas in that faith. I puzzled for a moment and probably scrunched up my face before asking her to expound on her question.

"Where are the decorations for here?" she asked again, adding, "This is not like Fulton Avenue."

I smiled broadly. I understood her question. Fulton Avenue is bedecked and bejeweled in a scaled down version of Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Rockefeller Plaza in New York or Monument Circle in Indianapolis. I remember considering the age of the Fulton Avenue decorations when I first saw them five years ago. Then and ever since, those decorations take me back to an era of childhood pleasures, dime store Santa Clauses and corner Christmas tree lots strung with colorful lights and jolly happy workers clapping their hands and stomping their feet to stay warm. I can almost see the frosty clouds of breath and hear the cheery greetings that once adorned the city streets of America when I was a child. I welcome the season and my travels down that busy city street. It is an awesome journey in space and time, melancholy and memory, each December when the sights and sounds of an old-timey-Christmas greet the travelers on that city street in Sacramento.

I returned my attention to her question, glancing around our bus bench. Although we were seated at the edge of a vast property of a very impressive Christian Church; although we faced three separate retail strip malls, we saw no physical display of the Christmas season. No tinsel, no bells, no snowmen or Santa Claus. No wreaths and no holly in sight. No music and definitely no Salvation-Army-bell-ringer-Santa-Clauses-with-chinkling-change-resounding-from-the-bottom-of- their bright-red-buckets. This little lady had noticed what I had missed. There were no decorations brightening our little corner of the world.

I shrugged my shoulders and pondered aloud that we might be witnessing the outcome of political correctness. She was puzzled.

I lamented that the days of store clerk "Merry Christmas" greetings and public Nativity scenes were fast falling into history. Decorations and celebrations were muzzled and constrained nearly everywhere I visit. I shared the story of how I'd been ordered to refrain from sharing any Christmas sentiments on my last public service job. We were granted special permission to hang decorations in our office space, as we were not exposed to other personnel or customers. It was so sad and I was actually willing to return to the exhaustion of retail cashiering just to find a little Christmas.

Her face clearly expressed her puzzlement and concern. I mentioned that in Indianapolis, where I come from, we could still display and express Christmas greetings and hang decorations wherever we worked or played. Her face lit up like the star atop a Christmas tree.

"Indianapolis!" she exclaimed. "You come from Indianapolis?"

"Yes", I said. "Do you know Indianapolis?"

"My son! His wife is from there. They live there for many years. Now they live in Louisville." Melancholy crossed her eyes only briefly as her face brightened with the pride only a mother feels.

"Yes", she continued. "Christmas there. They decorate in Indianapolis!"

We both recalled the warming influence of the bright decorations of the Midwest Christmas season, quickly glancing about the joyless intersection, we withdrew ourselves in silence again for a moment.

We soon resumed our animated conversation about family and the city, how long we had lived here and how close our houses were to one another. She was glad to have a "bus friend" and I was delighted to find one as well. Her accent was thick, but I was beginning to understand her words as we shared with each other.

She pointed to herself and told me her name. It was so foreign to my ears and unsteady upon the tongue that I asked her to spell it for me. The vowels and the consonants were jumbled up and confused my English centered brain. I stumbled to pronounce it and she laughed. She gestured that I should tell her my name and I did.

I asked her where she was from.

She responded "Iran."

I guess I didn't hear her; not really. Because, then I asked, "What church do you attend?" It seemed, after all, an obvious question on my part. She had been so concerned about the lack of Christmas around us. She had been more observant, more wistful and definitely more bewildered than me. It was so obvious that she missed and wanted the spirit of Christmas in her life "right that very minute". I had disregarded her response completely. 'Iran' she had said. 'Iran' and I had not heard her.

Imagine my face of shame when she responded, "I am Muslim".

Tears came to my eyes and I apologized for my ignorance.

"Of course," I responded when I found my tongue. "I should not be surprised. Of course you are Muslim."

I would have, should have, been surprised if she had said that she was not Muslim. But I was surprised that she was Muslim for a special reason.

"I must share with you a story", I told her. "You have reminded me of something so very, very special to me. Long ago, before I became a Christian, I had dinner with a man from Jordan or Kuwait. It has been so long that I've forgotten which. I do remember he was a sheik or an attendant to a sheik or some such title. He was Bedouin and he, too, was Muslim."

My bus friend smiled warmly and nodded for me to continue.

We were seated in a very upscale, lake front Chicago restaurant. In dinner conversation with the "sheik" I confessed that in this tumultuous world I could not, would not and did not believe in miracles. He graciously allowed me to continue to completely swallow my foot before he responded. He spoke in the most reassuring and convincing tone. I had never heard a testimony born by such a one who knows. He began by emphasizing and reaffirming that he was Muslim in every way; a devout and obedient follower of Mohammed.

"And then," I continued to share my story with my new friend, "Then he taught me of the miracle of Jesus Christ. He taught me of the miracle of a virgin birth. He promised me that there are still miracles even today."

The Muslim "sheik" convinced me that, long ago, there was a virgin who gave birth to a baby boy; a special baby boy that believers call the Christ. That Muslim sheik was so sure of the reality of that story, so convinced that it was true, that he used that story - the Christmas story - to convince me of the reality of God and of miracles.

My bus friend began to nod with great exuberance.

"Yes, Yes!" she exclaimed. "There are miracles! Yes, The birth of Jesus was a miracle."

So, in rebuttal to the referenced article, let me say that "As a Christian, and someone who feels very spiritually connected to Christ at all times of the year, it delights me that the same people who claim that we Christians "push" our views on others are the same people who think it is fine and dandy to celebrate' Christmas with us. I think it is fine and dandy too!

Don't you agree, this is What Jesus Would Do?