 Merry Christmas. Joyful anticipation fills our hearts as we enter upon the festivities of this glad season, a season of expectancy, and a season of wonder, a season of giving and forgiving, a season of thoughtfulness and tenderness, a season for friendship and fellowship. Let it be with music that we celebrate the holidays, and let it be in harmony that we dwell in these glad-some days. May love enter our hearts and rule our lives as we seek to support and to serve one another, and to forge a stronger bond with all that is. Invite you to rise in body and spirit on this Christmas Eve for the lighting of our chalice. And if you will join your voices with mine in reading the affirmation that is printed in your program. When the song of the angels is still, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and the shepherds are home, then the real work of Christmas begins. To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to bring peace among all peoples, to make music in the heart, this is the work of Christmas. And now if you will join your voices and song as we sing together our first carol number 57. As the gospel writers Matthew and Luke describe it, the first Christmas was a simple affair. No one went shopping. There was no fir tree to trim. There was no sumptuous feast laid out on a candlelit table. And apart from Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, no other family members were present. And it was not until epiphany, 12 days after Christmas, that Jesus finally received the magi's rich gifts. Certainly the shepherds were too poor to bring anything to the major cradle, but their own astonished presence. Christmas in the modern world, as we all know, is a much bigger deal. We devote considerable energy and resources to celebrating it properly and in keeping with current cultural standards. But with all the herculean efforts to do up Christmas right, to satisfy our own and others increasingly high expectations, we do tend to forget that an enterprise doesn't have to be complicated to be deeply meaningful. It doesn't have to be lavish in order to be joyous. The truth is a great deal of gratification can be gained from observing simple, time-honored rituals in the pleasant company of others. And indeed we may miss out on some of the magic, some of the majesty of Christmas when we try to gussy it up a little too much. 35 years ago, before the advent of social media in the 24-hour news cycle, Norman Cousins commented that our experiences come at us in such profusion from so many different directions that they are never really sorted out, much less absorbed. And the result, he says, is clutter and confusion. We gorge the senses and we starve the sensitivities. Let me repeat that last line. We gorge the senses and starve the sensitivities. Norman Cousins wasn't thinking about Christmas when he wrote those lines, but isn't that also an apt way of describing the run-up to and through Hanukkah and solstice in the Christmas season? Whether we realize it or not, one of the objectives of our modern consumer culture is to keep us ever in pursuit of more powerful doses of novelty and stimulation. And while it is good to get the old juices flowing once in a while, there is also the sublime experience called savoring that we may miss out on. Now we don't have to time travel all the way back to Bethlehem to get a glimpse of the mid-winter holiday that has a little less pizzazz. And so in the stories that follow this evening, all by authors writing in the 20th century, we will encounter a variety of folk, real and imaginative, who are striving to honor the spirit, if not the literal letter of this season of love and light. And even as Jesus was said to have multiplied the loaves and the fishes for the feeding of the thousands, these people were able to combine a few basic ingredients and fashion out of them a sense of awe, appreciation, compassion, and social solidarity that we would do well to replicate today. These are not sacred stories in the strict sense of that word, but they are honest, unembellished, and profoundly human. And perhaps on this evening of hope and promise, these stories will cause us to pause and to ponder what it is we really need, what we really want from these late December celebrations. And so the first of these stories comes from the well-known humorist and former Unitarian Universalist minister, Robert Folgen. The winter of 2003, I remember, the Rockettes came to town at Christmas Tide, a roadshow version of New York's Radio City Music Hall spectacular, featuring those long-legged lovelies who danced in unison, kick high, and strut around to big band music. It was the hot ticket for that Christmas. You just gotta go see the Rockettes. Spectacular is the operative word here. And even more extravaganza was available that winter, so for instance, a big samurai movie, another round of The Lord of the Rings, the big college football games, the big TV super special Phantasma Gorias, all spectacular, all big, big, big. But somehow, hyper-stimulation was not what I wanted this particular Christmas. Some low-key job would do just fine, amateur joy. I remember a conversation I had with a Greek friend in a small village on the island of Crete, and I asked why the Greeks minimize the celebration of Christmas, but then they go all out at Easter. And he explained to me that December 25th was just a birthday. Everyone has a birthday. Easter, on the other hand, celebrates a resurrection from the dead. That's amazing. That's spectacular. That is really big. And besides, he said, by the end of December, we Cretans have survived the stress of the tourist season, the exhaustion of the olive and the orange harvest in the first storms of winter. Nobody is up for roasting lambs outdoors in the wind and the rain, dancing around in circles in the village square at that time of year. Just a quiet church service, a walk home in the silent night, soup and bread, some old songs, the family singing around the fire, bed, that's about it. The work of amateurs. And that would explain why, on a Saturday night in December, when I could have been seeing the Rockettes or have gone to the symphony or watched explosions on the big TV screen, I was somewhere else. I was in a small church in my own neighborhood listening to a choir of dedicated amateurs sing their hearts out. At the intermission, there were some home-baked cookies provided by the ladies of the church, and I bought a raffle ticket on a handmade Christmas quilt. The proceeds would be given to the disadvantaged in our neighborhood. And then we returned to the sanctuary to hear a reading of Dylan Thomas' account of a child's Christmas in Wales. And then finally, the audience joined the choir in singing carols ending with Silent Night off key but sincere. Unspectacular. No glitz, no glamour, no extravagance, no big deal. Walking home in the Seattle rain, I realized that this was not a Christmas, a Christian, or even a particularly religious deal. It was about the universal companionship of amateurs. Amateurs of any faith, any culture, struggling like me to feel at home in the winter's dark and awed to be part of the mystery of it all. So I wasn't excited when I went to bed, just contented with getting what I wanted most in the holiday season. The company of people like me who find in themselves in the middle of winter a capacity for some joy. Small, deep, ordinary, amateur joy. I invite you now to remain seated as we sing together our next carol, Joy to the World. Election this evening is a reminiscence by Valerie Malar who now lives in Sunnyvale, California. It appeared in the October issue of The Sun magazine fortuitously enough. And so she remembers, it isn't only soldiers who show courage during wartime. My single mother endured the German bombing of London in 1944 with courage and with good humor. Missed us that time, Hitler, she would say after a bomb hit nearby. And so daily she queued for food. And nightly she trundled my younger sister and me off to the London Underground. And there in the subway tunnels we took shelter from the shelling. Finally, we were evacuated and we ended up in a cavernous derelict house atop a windswept cliff on the northeast coast of England. And the cold cobwebby place had recently been used by the British military. And the officer who placed us there dumped a basket of groceries in the hall and told my mother she could use anything that she wanted on the premises. And then he left. My mother had no job, no money, and two kids to support. And Christmas was on the way. And as the sound of the officer's car faded, she gave me a hug and said, what an adventure, hey. But there was no electricity. We did have a roof over our heads. We had army cots to sleep on, a cupboard full of abandoned pillows, sheets, and soft flannel blankets. Blue ones labeled officers for the use of. And gray ones labeled men for the use of. Within a few hours, mom had scrubbed and scoured one of the dust-choked rooms, and we were cuddled in the cots for warmth. No more bombs, mom said. On a walk to the local village the next morning, our London coats proved to be no match for the icy North Sea winds. Mom had a solution. Blankets meant for the use of officers were skillfully turned into warm winter coats for the use of her children. With the leftover scraps and the stuffing from the pillows, she made my little sister a stuffed bunny. And then she had an idea. Well, she preferred to say that God gave her the idea. She made two more bunnies, and the next day she persuaded a village shopkeeper to put them on his counter for sale. With the factories devoted to wartime production, frivolities like toys were scarce in England, and those two bunnies sold very quickly. And thus began a month of unremitting labor for my mother. At night, by candlelight, she sewed and she stuffed blue bunnies and kittens. And when the blue blankets ran out, she made gray kangaroos and elephants with white cotton tusks. And every night when I went to sleep she was busy cutting the fabric and sewing and stuffing, and in the morning she'd catch the bus into town and she'd persuade even more stow-owners to display her wares. And then at Christmas Eve, Mom came back smiling, laden with groceries and treats because she'd earned enough to buy food for us and coal for the fireplace. She'd even found time to make me a present, a quilted sewing box which she filled with brightly colored spools of thread and tiny scissors and embroidery silks. That's why we'll never forget sitting in that barely furnished room illuminated only by candles and a flickering coal fire and feeling ever so warm and well-fed and loved. A superintendent of the Universalist Church of America before the merger of our two denominations, the Universalist and the Unitarians in 1961. This particular story seems as appropriate in our own gilded age as it did when he first composed it over 60 years. When Jesus finally arrived on that December day, he asked for modern clothes so that he could move about freely and incognito. And he also asked for a guide confessing that the world today was quite confusing compared to the one that he had known. So we started walking down the main street of our busy metropolitan city jostled by crowds of inpatient shoppers. And I explained to him that these were people preparing for Christmas, perhaps the world's most widely celebrated holiday. And what is this Christmas, he asked in a puzzle voice. And what he was told that it was a celebration of his birthday, he almost burst into laughter. My birthday, he said in astonishment. But I was only this small town carpenter, a country preacher. What was my birth in a stable got to do with all these folks in rich clothes carrying all these packages around? Oh, it's a long story, I told him. In fact, it's such a long, long story you probably wouldn't understand it. In any case, they celebrate your birthday by giving each other presents. Well, I kind of like that, he said. I'm proud to think that people would do that in my name. So we walked down, down the street, and we came to a church. We passed through the door. Someone whispered to his companion, you know, that man looks like he could be Jewish. And the other one replied, but with that black skin, maybe he could be African-American. If Jesus heard those remarks, he made no reply. Once inside the church, he just looked up and breathed his wonder. This is yours, I said. This was built so that people could pay homage, so that they could worship you. That altar in the front of the chancel, that's where we remind people of the last supper that you celebrated with your disciples. And that great cross hanging over the altar, that's there because you died on a cross. Oh, the cross, the cross, he repeated slowly. I can never forget that. It was rough, it was splintered. It wasn't covered with gold leaf like this one. I took him to the pulpit and showed him the great Bible that laid open. There are four books in here he says to tell all about your life, although there are some significant gaps in the account. And he looked at that book with unbelieving eyes, seemingly unable to comprehend that men had taken his humble life and deeds and made a great religion out of them. And he just kept saying to me, but I was just a humble country boy with a compelling vision of a better world. A world where even the least fortunate could count on the love of their neighbors. But I had no wealth. I had no power. What did I do to deserve all this? It was Christmas Eve. But Jesus wanted to stay on the streets, move about among the people. He said they have so many skin colors. I hear so many different accents of speech. Do all these people love one another? Have the nations learned to live in peace? I only asked one thing that people love God with all their hearts and minds and souls and love their neighbor as themselves. Do people really fulfill my hopes these days? I had to turn my head for a moment to escape his eyes. And when I looked back, he was gone. And the streets were filled with Christmas lights, people hurrying to and fro. May we carry this thought in our hearts, Robert Cummins says, May the spirit that dwelt in that babe in Bethlehem and later in that itinerant preacher from Nazareth and still later in that man who died ignominiously at Golgotha, the man we know as Jesus, may that deathless spirit be in us also that we may witness to the truth that he spoke of today in our own wayward world. Please rise as you are able as we sing together and came upon him. The selection from Moss Hart's 1960 autobiography is indeed one of my all-time favorite Christmas stories. And Moss Hart was a well-known figure in American theater who died just a year after his autobiography was published in 1961. Again, a reminiscence by Moss Hart. It was the Christmas after my aunt had left the house and since it was she who always supplied the tree and the presents for my brother and myself, this Christmas without her was a bleak and an empty one. But I remember that I was more or less reconciled to it because my father had worked only spasmodically throughout the year. Two of the rooms that we typically read it out were vacant of borders and so we were dangerously close to rock bottom. Obviously, Christmas was out of the question. We were barely staying alive. On Christmas Eve, my father was very silent during the evening meal. But then he surprised me by turning and saying, Let's take a walk. He'd never suggested such a thing before and moreover, it was a very cold winter's night. And I was even more surprised when he said as we left the house, Hey, let's go down to 149th Street and Westchester Avenue. My heart leaped within me. That was the section where all the big stores were where at Christmas time, open push carts full of toys stood packed end to end for blocks at a stretch. On other Christmas Eve, I had often gone there with my aunt and from our tour of the carts she had gathered for me what I wanted most for Christmas. My father had known about this of course and joyously concluded that this walk with him could only mean one thing. He was going to buy me a Christmas present. On the walk down, I was delirious with delight and an inner sense of relief. It had been a bad year for me. That year of my aunts going and I wanted a Christmas present terribly. Not a present merely, but a symbol, a token of some sort. I needed some sign from my father and my mother that they knew what I was going through and cared for me as much as my aunt, as much as my grandfather did. And the idea that my father had managed a Christmas present for me in spite of everything. That filled me with a sudden peace and lightness of heart that I had not known in months. So we hurried on. Our heads bent against the wind to that cluster of lights ahead that was 149th Street and West Chester Avenue. And those lights seemed to me the brightest lights that I had ever seen. Tugging at my father's coat, I started down the line of push carts. There were all kinds of things that I wanted. But since nothing had been said by my father about actually buying a present, I would merely pause in front of a push cart and I would say with as much control as I could muster, hey dad, look at that chemistry set. There's a stamp album. Look at that printing press. And each time my father would pause and ask the push cart man for a price. And then without a word, we would move quickly on to the next push cart. And once or twice, he would actually pick up a toy of some kind and look at it and let it me as if to suggest that this might be something I would like. But I was 10 years old, a good deal beyond such toys. Because my heart was set on a chemistry set or a printing press. There they were. At every push cart we stopped at, printing presses, chemistry sets. The price was always the same. And as I looked up I could see that we were nearing the end of the line. And my father looked up too and I heard him jingle some coins in his pocket. And in a flash, I knew all about it. He had gotten together maybe 75 cents to buy me a Christmas present. And he hadn't dared to say so in case there was nothing that he could have for such a small sum. As I looked up at him I saw a look of despair. A look of disappointment in his eyes that brought me closer to him than I'd ever felt in my life. And I wanted to throw my arms around him and say, it doesn't matter. I understand. This is so much better than a chemistry set or a printing press. Because I love you. But I didn't say that. And instead we stood shivering beside each other and then we turned away from the last two push carts and we started silently back home. I don't know why those words stayed so choked up inside of me. I didn't even take his hand on the way home. And he didn't take mine either. Because, you know, we were just not on that particular basis. And I never told him how close I felt to him that night that for a little while this concrete wall between father and son had just crumbled away. And here we were, just two lonely people struggling to reach out to one another. I came close to telling him this many years later. And again it was Christmas. I was visiting my father in Florida and he was a bright and blooming 91 years of age. And as we sat in the living room on Christmas Eve I showed him pictures of his two grandchildren. And then suddenly I felt his hand slip into mine. And it was the first time in our lives that either of us had ever touched one another. No words were spoken. And I kept on turning the pages of that picture album but my hand remained over his. I didn't tell him what I was thinking or feeling, but that moment was enough. It had taken 40 years for the Gulf separating us to finally close. It is now time for the giving and the receiving of our evening offering. And if you look on the back of your printed program you will see that all of your gifts tonight in their entirety are devoted to our eviction prevention program. Please be generous. Max Gabler was my predecessor here at First Unitarian Society serving as the senior minister from 1952 to 1987 35 year tenure. Max is now 96 years old. He lives in the memory care unit at Oakwood Village West in a state of gradual decline. And as I approached retirement I thought it appropriate that the last evening be from one of our Unitarian Universalist movements most illustrious elders. There are really only two spirits of Christmas Max wrote each very different from the other and yet both deeply ingrained in our celebration of the season. I suspect that most of us have more of both of these spirits within us than we ordinarily recognize. The first spirit of course is the one we usually talk about the spirit of goodwill and peace. It's this spirit that bids us to renew our hopes amidst the gathering darkness that kindles our generosity and our concern that attunes our ears to the ever renewed angelic chorus. But the second equally inseparable from the observances of this season is the spirit of Scrooge. Bah, humbug. We all know that hatred and distrust will not disappear from human relationships just because we say it ought to be so. We all know that peace on earth is a lot more complicated than it sounds in our Christmas hymns. We all know that if the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the young lion all got along with one another as Isaiah famously prophesied that at least some of these animals would die of hunger. What it comes right down to is that we give voice at Christmas to extravagant hopes that are beyond the range of any possible fulfillment. They are, as we would say in our more sober moments, unrealistic. But the real question is, is that so bad? Perhaps the part of wisdom is to accept this reminder of the gap between the real and the ideal for what it is. A spur not only to our hopes, but to our imagination, to our energies. It would be foolish to ignore the element of wishful thinking in our Christmas hopes. But how unspeakably more foolish it would be if we were to accept present reality as the last word and to stop dreaming altogether. Our hopes are, of course, bound to be disappointed, at least in part. So, long as time endures, we shall remain creatures in the making, somewhere this side of perfection. But there is always hope from moving beyond the tragic failures of the past, if not all the way, at least a few steps further. Our hopes are forever destined to fall to ashes, and yet, out of those ashes, there always will emerge new hope. Again, again, and yet again. Please join me in the spirit of meditation. Spirit of gratitude and good tidings walk with us in the days ahead as we strive, each in our own way to bring healing and happiness to those whom our lives touch. Help us to remember the meaning and the satisfaction we all hunger for, that it is most dependably secured by what we give and not what we get. Blithe spirit remind us also that the gifts most in demand are often the least tangible. Not the silk ties with the power tools, the gift cards, and the gim crackery. But the bright angels of our own better nature. And these angels reside are made manifest in our patience with other people's foibles, our appreciation for their efforts, our concern for their struggles, our consideration of their needs, in our rejection of humbug and our embrace of courage and hope, in the encouragement we bestow and, at last, in the loving kindness we display. In all such matters the angels of our better nature are made manifest. So this is where we come most gloriously into our own. This is where we bring Christmas to life and make the season truly bright. Returning through the gathering darkness to the homes and the faces we cherish. May we remember now and then to return in mindfulness to ourselves so that the angels we harbor will bestow the gifts that persistently and dependably keep on giving in season and out. May it be so. You may remain seated as we sing together our closing carol silent night. In a season Frank Schulman wrote I wish for the dull a little more understanding and for the understanding a little more poetry. I wish a heart for the rich and a little hope for the poor. I wish some love for the lonely comfort for the grieved. I wish companionship for those who must spend their evenings alone. Contentment for the aged who see their days slipping by all too quickly. I wish dreams for the young strength for the weak courage for those who have lost their faith. And I wish that we might all be just a little more gentle with one another. Best wishes peace and good will to all and Merry Christmas.