Innerdialects

#17

Dear God, no matter what happens today, help me  hold on to Your Power: that same Power that raised Jesus from the dead . 

🌿🌏🌱

I saw this “What Christmas means to me,” prompt on Turntable talk . Perfect!

For me Turntables remind me of Tony Hancock’s inimitable Scrooge: a half hour of Entertainment’s best vocal monologues. It was brilliant, hilarious and colored my imagination in 3D;

written by Charles Dickens, this Story’s Spirits of Christmas Past, Present & Future, (4 Spirits?) followed by the change in miserable Scrooge! (Anyone know where we can listen to this again?) I ‘ve searched Turntable Classics, but in vain.

❇️

“What Christmas means to me..”

As a kid, it stunned me that The Jesus we knew, was not white, nor did He ride a reindeer in the snow! (He was middle Eastern, born in a place for sheep, goats and hay! No chocolate coated candy, nor soft fleecy baby blanket, like in Christmas cards?)

Our South Indian home filled with scents of candle, a real tree, slung with tinsel strips & home made baubles – our fingers gooey with helping Ma at rolling out kul- kuls, diamond cuts, or cookies, there wasn’t enough time to fix our home before people arrived, at all times of the day. Our home had an open door: it was a simple house, four steps leading to a veranda, (you say porch?), the air thick with a coastal December.

Once while on a remote island, an entire tribal clan arrived: they were hardly attired. It was warm weather, filled with curious wide eyes. Local tribal leader had had a miracle from The Jesus:

…the Chief and wife (wife, full term pregnant and with a breach baby), had needed my Dad to fix the worn out Station Launch, so we could ride across, past that deadly Mahanadi river crossing, to Khujang and then to Cuttack for help. At midnight, Tribe Chief had been at our door, complete with spear (customary gear), it was scary.

In a literal vision, God had shown Dad how to fix that launch. In that next 24 hours, Chief got his baby boy, and forever, he brought us fish, crab, prawn, even on festivals, and specially on that following Christmas,

when Ma cooked a Biriyani for them all, crowding every inch of space from our decked tree, to the stone steps outside. By now they knew the tree was not Jesu, but a symbol of the Tree of the Cross. That was our explanation. There was a tiny crib, and some singing : the details blur as I write this, but the Essence of the Real Christmas grows stronger with Time.

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What Christmas means to me :

it is God stepping out of the Pages of Scriptures, Him stepping out of that Cradle in the Manger, and right into our neighbourhoods, wherever we are.

I love the added decor, red bells, soft lights, touches of tinsel, candle lit warmth, special hugs, gifts, carols, Bible readings, memoirs of not just the Past and new ones of the Present, but of the tomorrow prophesied, when He will return. Joy is not a fleeting Conditioner. It is a DaySpring flowing right thru: It’s Sparkle tides us through the Whatevers Life might fling our way. So yes, This Advent, I recall with awe the route that brought us this far, but especially the Lord Who is with us, with His Ability to turn the miserable Scrooge inside, or out there – into fertile ground,

-ready for new king- sized miracles of Faith, if we are willing to receive…

Who has positively impacted my life? I call Him The Jesus: the One & Only Who loved / loves me / Us, enough to die for Us, that we may love Eternally.

^{“For God so loved the world, He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have Eternal Life.” John3:16}