COME TO BETHLEHEM, LEAVE THE HEART'S OBLATIONS

My ears were alert for the first Christmas song of the season. It's a little game I play with myself each year, guessing which one it will be and where I will be at the time. This year it was "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," known in Latin as "Adeste Fideles." I was coming down the stairs with an armful of angels, shepherds, Wise Men, and sheep when the age-old song came to me by way of Magnovox.

A call to the faithful seems more fitting for the first song of the season than "Frosty the Snow Man" or even "Silent Night." It is like the clear sound of a trumpet reminding us of something that happened long ago, variously described as a light that came to humanity which the faithful must never let go out.

I dumped my arm load of Christmas things on the couch. Some woolly sheep came to rest upside down, some angels too. The Wise Men in a tangle of sheep legs and tails and shepherds' tow sack clothing didn't look very wise at all, but I wanted to sing along with the choir, unencumbered.

"Come," says the song. "Come ye to Bethlehem ... to see the King of angels ... the word of the Father now in flesh appearing."

The mind travels fast. I accepted the invitation and was instantly in little Bethlehem of long ago. My mental picture of the inn, the stable, the shepherds in the surrounding fields tending their sheep was formed early in life by way of school and church plays and tableaus. It has not changed, not even to admit the Little Drummer Boy into the stable, appealing as he may be.

I've seen, in real life, such things as cows, donkeys, mangers, babies, tenders of sheep, new mothers and fathers so my mind can get a good grasp on these. I can "see" them. I have a little more trouble with the angels appearing to the shepherds and hearing their heavenly announcement since I've never seen nor heard anything like that, but I take it on faith. Through some mysterious (to me) alchemy the shepherds saw and heard. I accept.

There I was, sitting on the couch, singing along with a choir in Utah whose picture and sounds had been plucked out of the air and presented to me, right there ten feet away. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought wavelengths. Some day might we tune in to heretofore unheard-of wavelengths and hear choirs of angels singing in exultation? It was too misty a thought to pursue as I traveled down the path from the inn to the stable, singing, "Yea, Lord, we greet thee ... Jesus to thee be all glory given."

The strains of music came to an end, to be followed by some "think tank" commentator talking about a New World Order on the horizon coming out of the Middle East mixup. It is to be founded, so this wise man said, on a balance of power, balance of terror and geophysical elements. What? No love, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation elements of the New World Order that started that night in Bethlehem of the Middle East? These are lofty concepts to mix up with oil, aggression, brutality, estimates of causalities from an impending war, face saving, etc. Sometimes it seems the world is, like Christian in "Pilgrim's Progress," mired in the Slough of Despond. But we know how that came out. The faithful believe that Pilgrim World will some day reach the Celestial City by using the directions of the New World Order that came out of that silent night in Bethlehem, rather than balance of power and terror, no matter how thick the mist of doubt and fog of war they must pass through.

In the meantime? Well, we keep the old story alive. I untangled the sheep, shepherds, Wise Men and angels and once more arranged them in what to me seems to be their proper places, wishing that such simple brining of order out of the tangled mess might be applied to the world situation.

Who knows? Christmas comes between now and when we may shortly thereafter be teetering on the edge of war. It might make a difference, attune ears to heretofore unknown wavelengths of how to achieve peace. Anyway, in the midst of "Jingle Bells," "Rudolph" and "Little Drummer Boy," still, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant and to the Christ-child bring our hearts' oblations.

REJOICE!