by Phyllis Burdge |
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I was a teen-aged Sunday School teacher working with preschoolers
who were embracing their first few years of life -- years of spontaneity
and uninhibited honesty when innocence and enthusiasm run rules
of conduct right out of town.
The month of November began with my normal mob of two- to four-year-olds.
When the K-1st Grade teacher had to move suddenly, I inherited
her students, and my mob doubled in size.
In the weeks and eventually days before the Christmas program,
a number of total strangers joined our group. As every experienced
teacher, which I wasn't, knows, many children who are rarely or
never seen throughout eleven months of the year, magically. and
raucously, appear in time to participate in a Christmas program.
Most children delight in the participation. Those who don't delight
in it grace the stage with their presence only because of parental
coaxing, pleading, or threatening. These children are readily
identified by a vocabulary which seems limited to the words I
don't wanna!
My youngest "participant" that year was eighteen months
old. Her parents brought her to Sunday School along with her two
sisters and left all three of them with me. Squeaks of protest
lodged in my throat. Mouth agape, I glanced over the roomful of
small children who looked mature compared to the new addition
clambering onto my lap. The mob now numbered thirty, one and a
half to six years. All were angels, but some were clearly "out
of their realm."
When I'd announced in October that I'd write my class's portion
of the program, I had no idea that during the month of December
my ranks would more than double. But I took it in stride, stumblingly.
The older children stared at me when I sang, and the baby chewed
on my guitar. We had four very short lines to learn. Between incessant
trips to the restroom, we managed to learn only the first six
words with any degree of success.
The night of the performance appeared with unnecessary haste.
I enlisted, perhaps conscripted would be more accurate, several
friends and mothers to sit with my group during Pastor's opening.
We sat at the front - occupying four pews -- so that we'd not
have far to go when the time came for our reverent march forward
for our presentation.
Slightly to the left of the pulpit, in a position to totally distract
Pastor, sat one of my four-year-old cherubs in animated fascination
with his reflection in a tree ornament. I was close enough to
the tree myself that the icicles tickled my nose, but I was three
little bodies away from Christopher and couldn't easily drag him
back into his seat each time he crept close to the shiny ball,
screwing his head grotesquely while forming Os with his lips and
otherwise pantomiming with his reflection.
I finally shifted the baby on my lap and stretched as far as I
could in an effort to tap Christopher's shoulder. This maneuver
frightened the baby who grabbed my hair with one hand and part
of the tree with the other. Tears rushed to my eyes with the tug
of hair. The tree tottered, my eyes popped, and my mouth mimicked
Christopher. I saw my reflection in a shiny orb as the huge evergreen
rocked gently back into place. The baby thrust a handful of icicles
into her mouth, Christopher exclaimed, "Wow, Teacher!"
and Pastor took a drink from his water glass.
I began to think I knew the meaning of Christian martyrdom.
Just as I was silently praying that Pastor's remarks would be
brief, and that thirty little bladders would hold out, the baby
soaked her diaper, her dress, and me. While I was still in shock
over this latest development, Pastor closed his portion of the
program and motioned my group to the front. At Pastor's motion,
the children discarded all memories of an orderly march.
I kept a low profile as I took my place. Behind a rush of tiny
arms and legs the congregation glimpsed the sheepish shuffle of
a big person, on her knees, with a very wet right leg disheveled
hair, and an icicle over one ear.
We sang the traditional nursery/kindergarten hymn "Away in
a Manger." Then we recited our part. I read part of the poem
and the children chimed in with the one phrase they could remember.
They said it well. They nearly shouted it: LET JESUS BE
THE CHRISTMAS JOY!
I was nineteen years old, a bedraggled clown, and had good reason
to feel very self conscious. But I didn't. Instead, I was conscious
of a little army that had raced with total abandonment to the
front of the church to proclaim with all the beautiful enthusiasm
of childhood, Let JESUS be the Christmas joy!
Yuletide bells on Christmas Eve; Let Jesus be the Christmas joy
Late at night, so tenderly Let Jesus be the Christmas joy -- Phyllis Oehme, December 1968 |
e-mail us at: Phyllosopher@aol.com |
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judi 12/13/97 (updated 12/28/01)
