Field and Fountain, Moor and Mountain

Hello to one, hello to all! Merry Christmas!

I have been very busy this week. It's just hard to find the time to do much of anything when there are so many VH1 specials about the Jonas Brothers to watch.

But you cannot say I have been wasting my life away. I have been attending to very important work, like putting together a nativity scene with a 5-year-old named Madison.

And I have been going to a lot of church services. Isn't my mom's church the prettiest little thing?

She's going to get married here!

I think it's the cat's meow.

And I think the Boys' Choir has the best outfits. I like to keep my life as Dickensian as possible, aesthetically-speaking, so I can really get behind these collars.

For malls and the Food Network, Christmas is now over. But for the Church, the Christmas season has just begun! December 25th is just the kick-off party! Thus, I'm still going to blab on about Christmas, and today on "Mari Talks Jesus," we are discussing the Christmas story.

I am not much one for taking the Bible very literally. You will recommend me to Hell for saying so, but I make a lot of exceptions while reading many of the Best O' Bible Stories: I translate "7 days" in the creation story to "lots of bajillions of years" and I think maybe Noah let a few more animals on the boat than just two of each. My reasoning is that I can't imagine why you would take only two Golden Retrievers.

But the Christmas Story, I take absolutely literally. This narrative is a total hit. You've got your sentiment, special effects, suspense, teen pregnancy, and a satisfying ending with all the cast members together in the stable, getting along famously as though they're at a cocktail party, looking adoringly at the Jesus who is always sleeping, and Mary always looking like some sexy Arabian babe dressed in cornflower blue and Joseph the Johnny Depp doppelganger. This stuff is brilliant.

My favorite characters from this whole event are the Three Kings. Even though Matthew never mentions an exact number, the Renaissance Painting School of Theology shows us there were three, and thus I believe it. Additionally, it is my understanding that they rode into Bethlehem on camels, and wore corresponding outfits--just in different colors. I am very firm on this issue.

Let's review their sub-plot: So Baby Jesus is the hottest ticket in town, and Larry, Curly, and Moe just have to see this guy for themselves, so they all come rushing over from the east (historians say that they probably traveled from what is now Iraq) to give the new king his props. They bow down, they present the Holy Family with some completely useless baby gifts (clearly it's their first shower), and then they high-tail it out of there before King Herod finds out and decaptitates them.

This story is out of this world!

First of all, these guys are experiencing some culture shock and are making some humorous blunders. While Jews traditionally offered sheep and other unfortunate livestock to God, the Magi offered gold and oils. Second, bowing in Jewish culture was not really the appropriate response to...anything. But the Magi were there, kneeling and bowing away, and pretty soon it caught on in a big way with Christendom and we still do it nowadays.

Second of all, and this is the important part, these three kings were worshipping a baby. I'm not sure how they explained this to the folks back at home, who no doubt believed their three friends had gone nuts, but the kings were completely into it from Day 1. These three wise men, with all their smarts and their good looks and power, were kneeling before a screaming infant in complete adoration. If you have ever been around a screaming infant, you know this is no small task.

And even more remarkable, the kings were worshipping alongside shepherds--the blue-collar bumpkins of Palestine--who were also invited to the stable. Here are these kings--the Kennedys of the day, totally intellectual and well-dressed with refined tastes and excellent posture, and then the shepherds who come from the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Ozarks.

I'm thinking that the kings and the shepherds got to be pretty good friends that night, and by early morning the kings were interpreting dreams and pointing out constellations--their scientific specialty was astronomy--and shepherds were telling jokes and talking about what it's like to be a shepherd, and they probably drank a lot of wine and swapped contact info and told each other to keep in touch and send Christmas cards.

The kings made their way home--but took a different path so as to avoid Herod. Gregory the Great made a lovely connection that having come to know Jesus we are forbidden to return by the way we came. We can learn a lot from the Magi, so it seems.

Though the Bible only hints at the entire Christian narrative, I love that it is essentially a collection of stories, such as this most famous one, in one big storybook. There are heroes, battles, mother-daughter dramas, heartwarming anecdotes, and loveable characters with incredible names. It is a grand introduction to the epic tale that will conclude in Christ's Second Coming, an event that will probably unfold not unlike the Christmas story, with all its varied protagonists coming together in an unexpected place at an unexpected time.

Frederick Buechner said about the Christmas Story: If it is true, it is the chief of all truths. If it is not true, it is of all truths the one that people would most have be true if they could make it so.

It is a story of magic and wonder, with a great costume designer.

One of my favorite parts of the Episcopal Eucharistic Prayer is right before we take communion, when the priest says: In the fullness of time, put all things in subjection under your Christ, and bring us to that heavenly country where, with all your saints, we may enter the everlasting heritage of your sons and daughters; through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church, and the author of our salvation.

I don't know what exactly "author of our salvation" means, but it always makes me think of this giant Jesus with a beard and white robe and the whole nine yards, sitting at a gargantuan desk, writing a very large book with my face on the cover and the title, "MARI'S SALVATION." So it's a little narcissistic, but I'm sure he's got one for everybody.

In mine, he's writing this really long story about how once upon a time I was born on a Sunday in California and then I got older and had all these experiences like baking orange cookies with my mom and riding on an elephant and slipping on a shiny rock at the beach.

Then I got even older and walked for three hours by myself to a small island off the coast of southern Chile and as soon as I arrived there was a huge hailstorm and the hail was as large as golf balls and I thought I might die but I found shelter at an oyster bar and a guy named Carlos gave me some bread, then one time I was out to dinner with my best friend and we decided to start dating and it was so great because being with him is like being home, and then one fall day I was walking in Evanston and I saw an Episcopal church and decided to go inside and I started crying because it was so beautiful.

All this is my salvation. I don't believe that "being saved" is a one-time event that happens while you're flipping channels when you can't sleep and end up watching the Billy Graham Altar Call at 2am from your La-Z-Boy and Billy tells you to accept Jesus and then you stop smoking and give your testimony at church camp a few years later.

On the subject of salvation I agree with Catholic apologist James Akin: "I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved."

It is an on-going story, a constant adventure. There are twists and turns and humor and tragedy and a Greek Chorus of angels that cheers me on and cries with me when I'm sad, and handsome protagonists and wretched antagonists and an excellent soundtrack.

I think those three kings were not saved the night they bowed before Jesus. It was then that they became a part of this huge story--the story of salvation--and as they rode back to the East, continued their journey of courage and curiosity, God kept loving and keeping them as He did even before they got to see the baby. As such notable protagonists in The Christmas Story, their appearences surely would not end there. I'm certain they were offered many more roles in beautiful stories throughout their lives--as we all have been and will be.