Something Christmasy I Guess

On Tuesday the back of my mind felt a little itchy. Something was wrong or maybe missing. I reached down and put my hand on the little holster where I keep my mobile phone. It wasn’t there.

“I’d better go find my phone. One of my web clients might have called.”

I went to my bedroom and found the phone lying on my bed. When I picked it up and saw that I had missed a call from Ben Chappell, I experienced a full-body spasm of panic as the details of a forgotten event flooded into my mind.

“The Christian Legal Society Christmas Luncheon! Today is Tuesday. What time is it? What time is it? What time is it?”

I squeezed my wristwatch between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand as though this might somehow help me see the time faster. It was 11:50 am.

“Oh, shit! Damn! Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!”

My wife heard the outburst and rushed into the room. “What’s wrong?” she shouted, greatly alarmed.

“I’m supposed to be speaking at the Christian Legal Society luncheon TODAY, and I forgot. This is horrible! I don’t remember what time the lunch is or when I’m supposed to be there.”

I called Ben on his mobile phone. “Hey, howya doin?” he asked pleasantly. He probably thought I was calling from the lobby or something.

“Terrible. Ben, I totally forgot about the luncheon. What time does it start?”

“Noon, but it’s okay. Listen, they probably won’t be ready for you until 12:15 or so. Just come quickly, and if I have to, I can get up and tell them you’re running a little late.”

I looked at my watch again. It was getting close to 11:55. It’s about a 15 minute drive to the Petroleum club from my house. I cupped my hand over the phone and hissed at Jeanene. “Get me clothes. Nice ones. A tie and everything.”

She ran to my closet and started grabbing things off hangers.

“Yeah, okay Ben. I’m leaving right now.”

Jeanene rushed over with black slacks, a shirt, and a tie. While I was frantically stuffing a leg into my pants, she tossed me some socks. “I couldn’t find any black socks or ANY matching socks for that matter. Here’s a brown one and a dark blue one. I guess that will have to do.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. I don’t care at this point. No one’s gonna see my socks.”

She watched me for a second while I tried to make a knot in my tie while working my foot into a shoe.

“So, are you ready with what you’re gonna say? With your sermon or whatever? What are you gonna talk about?”

A small bomb went off in my head, causing my mouth to drop open and my hands to freeze in the middle of tying my tie. In my panic about forgetting the luncheon, I had not considered a far more disturbing fact. I had nothing to say. I planned on spending the morning before the luncheon getting ready to speak. But of course, when I forgot the event, I forgot to prepare for it as well.

I should tell you that like most ministers, I do a fair amount of public speaking. Weddings, prayers, sermons, bible studies, little talks for this group or that association. I always prepare extensively. I generally have an outline with me, typed and with transition statements clearly marked. I usually go over this outline so thoroughly that I don’t even need it. But I keep it on the podium just in case. I like to be prepared, and I don’t like speaking unless I know exactly what I’m going to say.

For some reason I stayed calm even when I imagined myself standing before a room full of lawyers with nothing to say. Maybe my adrenaline glands were limp and empty after they seized so violently when I saw Ben’s name on the phone.

I decided I didn’t want to confess to Jeanene that I had nothing to say. It was rather superstitious of me. I wondered if admitting my weakness out loud might inspire my glands to find reserves and give me another shot of panic juice.

“What am I going to talk about? At the luncheon? At the Christian Legal Society luncheon today? Well, obviously it’s Christmas or near Christmas. So uh…you know, something Christmasy I guess.”

She stared at me for a moment. “You’re not ready are you?”

Okay, it was time to be honest.

“No.”

“You don’t know what you’re going to say?”

“No.”

“Do you have ANY idea at all what you want to talk about?”

“No.”

“You have NO idea. You’re telling me you have NO plan. You do NOT know what you are going to do. You haven’t thought about this at all.

“Nope.”

“So...what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, something Christmasy I guess.”

She let this sink in, then nodded. “I kinda wish I was gonna be there now. This is, uh, gonna be interesting.”

“Yep, it's going to be interesting. Okay look, I have to talk to myself now. That’s how I do these things, so you’re gonna hear some weird stuff.”

“Oh by all means, go ahead. Don’t mind me.” She folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe.

I switched on my electric razor and glanced at my watch. It was almost noon. While I shaved I talked out loud to the man in the mirror.

“Okay, lawyers, lawyers, lawyers…lawyers. What do lawyers need to hear at Christmas? Christian lawyers. CHRIStians. I gotta shock em a little, shake em up. They need to be surprised. Lawyers keep everything in, I don’t know, little lawyer boxes or whatever. They need to hear something new, something they’ve never thought of. Something to make them see.”

“Wise men? No.”

Shepherds? No.”

Simeon, that old man that waited so long to see Jesus…...No.”

“The manger? Hmm. Yeah, manger. Something about the manger and letting people put their baby in your manger. Manger, manger, manger.”

I glanced at Jeanene as I headed out of our bathroom. “It’s going to be about the manger. Something about the manger. I’ll work out the rest in the car.”

I got there in twelve minutes. And in that twelve minutes I remembered that there are some surprises left at Christmas. I mean, apart from the surprise of finding out that you are supposed to be on stage in fifteen minutes. I’m talking about the surprise of realizing that Mary and Joseph were refugees who needed some place to have their baby. Whatever accommodations they had arranged were not suitable for birthing, and they had to rely on the hospitality of a stranger. In this case, a stranger with a manger.

There is plenty in this story to shock everyone, certainly a room full of lawyers and a befuddled preacher.

I borrowed a piece of paper from the receptionist by the elevators, jotted a couple of notes on it, and walked in the room. Ben was there with the folks from his law firm. Lunch had been a little delayed, so I even had time to eat a bite before I had to speak.

And you know what? It went fine. Years of preaching from the Christmas stories have left me enough in my reserve tank to get me through one luncheon, though I am certain that if I ever got lazy and quit preparing, I would lose this gift.

So the preacher got a pass on this day. Thank God for small miracles.

After it was over, Ben and I walked out to our cars. He laughed and said, “I’m just glad I called you. It looks like everything came out okay this time, huh?”

“Yep,” I said. “This time it was grace all around.”

rlp

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