The Road goes ever on and on 
Down from the door where it began. 
Now far ahead the Road has gone, 
And I must follow, if I can, 
Pursuing it with eager feet, 
Until it joins some larger way 
Where many paths and errands meet. 
And whither then? I cannot say.

— Bilbo in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

It’s on DVD now, the 8mm home movie clip of my sister Vicki and me on Christmas Day in Okinawa in 1963. We are on the porch in front of our house, the door wrapped like a gift in silver foil, a big red ribbon on it cruciform and tied up in a bow. I am wearing my new holster and my six-shooters, my leather vest and cowboy hat, and she’s decked out in her new white dress and her new Mary Janes. Her hands adorned by her new white gloves she’s slapping me about the face and I’ve got my guns in my hands applying the butt-ends of those pistols to the top of her head which is coiffed appropriately for the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then the silver door opens. And there is our mother in her cat eye glasses, lipstick and Christmas dress. She bends over and, pointing to the camera, says something to us — this was 8 millimeter film so there’s no audio. It’s evident she’s saying that Daddy is capturing all this on film, for we look both of us in the direction of the camera and quick as Jesse James I put my pistols in their holsters the way the gunslingers do, Vicki adjusts her dress while our mother fixes her hair, and the two of us put our arms about each other just so and walk arms around each other down the sidewalk to the car, the picture of two loving, happy, camera-fearing children.

What were we fighting about? We had come to blows over my sister’s anger at my having lost the key to her brand new roller skates. So we were not fighting over nothing.

Ten years later, a door opened to the Chapel of the post where we lived, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. It was held open by the invitation of a friend, and under the auspices of the chaplain at the time, an Episcopal priest. The girl who went through it is not the same girl who came out. Vicki started to recognize that her life was lived under a beneficent eye, and not just the eye of her father looking through a camera. She began to live Coram Deo, as the monks use to say, before the face of God.

12 December 1991 — Evan entered kindergarten this fall, so one day early in September I found myself rubbing my eyes at a dizzying array of grade school backpacks — fluorescent green and pink, periwinkle and lavender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bags, all of them trying hard to look enticing but all of them shining on my retinae as the price to be paid for growing up. My son, they tell me, needed something to carry his papers in, so it fell to me to get him a backpack, the harbinger and first installment of that baggage for which children are so famous and beautiful for not wearing. By dint of will I chose one, a black one — the zipper, the straps, all of it is black — the good reason being that it would be easy to spot amid the neon, the real reason being that when you consider what it is a child leaves behind to go to school his outfit ought to be funereal.

I’m shamelessly overprotective. I know. I am a sissy. But Lord, What am I doing? seems a fair question to ask when you look into your child’s eyes and see not only tears but terror.

A couple of weeks ago we were lying in bed and Evan asked me, “Daddy, who came first, the Indians or God?” I started to say God but not wanting to have gone to school for nothing I thought to tell him that God came first except that God doesn’t have a beginning the way people do, that time and space are beneath God, God being above and beyond it and all that. I didn’t expect him to understand this any more than I myself understand it, so I just said, “God did.”

But God isn’t above and beyond it. Not anymore. Think of it. The message of Christmas is news that whereas from eternity he was timeless now, over there in Mary’s womb, God hunkers down in time. The Unconditioned Being becomes conditioned. The Infinite who could have said humbug to our flesh and our finitude tries it on for size. He takes on baggage he’s supposed to be famous and beautiful for not wearing. Unless it were true it would make no sense at all.

Well, so that is that.  Now we must dismantle the tree,

Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes—

Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic.

The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,

And the children got ready for school.  There are enough

Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —

Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,

Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —

To love all of our relatives, and in general

Grossly overestimated our powers.  Once again

As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed

To do more than entertain it as an agreeable

Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,

Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,

The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.

The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,

And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware

Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought

Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now

Be very far off.  But, for the time being, here we all are,

Back in the moderate Aristotelian city

Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry

And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,

And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

It seems to have shrunk during the holidays.  The streets

Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten

The office was as depressing as this.  To those who have seen

The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,

The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all… .

W. H. Auden, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, lines of which were quoted by the Rev. Fr. Billy Shand in his sermon today.

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

—by an unknown New Englander

Mary

Oh shut your bright eyes that mine must endanger
With their watchfulness: protected by its shade
Escape from my care: what can you discover
From my tender look but how to be afraid?
Love can but confirm the more it would deny.
Close your bright eye.

Sleep. What have you learned from the womb that bore you
But an anxiety your Father cannot feel?
Sleep. What will the flesh that I gave do for you,
Or my mother love, but tempt you from His will?
Why was I chosen to teach His son to weep?
Little one, sleep.

Dream. In human dreams earth ascends to Heaven
Where no one need pray nor ever feel alone. 
In your first hours of life here, O have you
Chosen already what death must be your own?
How soon will you start on the Sorrowful Way?
Dream while you may.

W. H. Auden

Say Heav’nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome Him to this, his new abode…?

December 24, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

The biggest news we have for you this year is that our eldest son, Evan Robert, was married May 31st to Kristin Signe Torok, the daughter of Andrew and Robin Torok of San Juan Capistrano, CA. Phil co-officiated the ceremony at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. All four of Kristin’s siblings and all three of Evan’s were involved in the wedding. Kristin gave Evan the wedding ring my mother had given my father, and which I’d worn for twenty-five years after he passed away in 1982. The reception was at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles. It was lovely—and what a party! Kristin and her parents planned everything to perfection. We enjoyed spending nearly a week in southern California and are thrilled for Evan and Kristin. It was also truly a pleasure to see so many of our relatives and friends at the wedding; guests flew in from at least four continents, including my brother Russ with Beth and Anna from Kenya. Even now, we often find ourselves reminiscing about how wonderful the fairy-tale wedding was.

I’m afraid that I have gotten a bit ahead of myself in talking about the wedding; I would like to tell you about how we came to know Kristin better. She spent weekends with us in our home in the fall of 2007 whilst she interned at the White House in the First Lady’s Press Office. We have all come to love her and are delighted to welcome her into our family.

Evan and Kristin were graduated from Wheaton College May 11th. The same day, Evan was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U. S. Army. He and Kristin spent this fall back in Wheaton while Evan worked as a Gold Bar Recruiter for the ROTC Department at Wheaton. From mid-January through the Spring, he will be at several Army bases around the country; and in the summer, he will deploy for a one-year tour in Iraq. Kristin finished up her law school applications in November and will begin the study of law in the fall.

Gabriel enjoyed being Evan’s Best Man in the wedding. Currently in his sophomore year at Yale, he served this past semester as the Chief Whip of the Tory Party in the Yale Political Union. He is the principal oboist in the Saybrook College Orchestra at Yale and he worships at Christ Church Episcopal, the Anglo-Catholic parish close to campus. A highlight this year for us was listening these past several days to Gabriel having domestic conversations in Japanese with his お祖母さん (grandmother). He has now completed three semesters of Japanese language study.

Gillian is in her senior year at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac. She is graceful, lithe, and lovely. In the midst of her college applications, she is involved in school theatrical productions, AP Studio Art, and youth group at our parish, Saint Francis Episcopal Church. She has a heart for the Dayspring from on High, and I am confident that her tender spirit will guide her through her life. She and I have become close friends and enjoy reading together, walking with our dog, shopping, and baking. Gillian will be graduating from high school in June. And whither then? We cannot say.

Aaron, aged thirteen, has grown eight inches taller this year. He and I spend our days at Norwood School in Bethesda together, where he is in seventh grade. Aaron took up the viola a year ago and plays in my string ensemble. He also continues to play the piano, which he performed on Saturday at a local nursing home (I bring my students and children there every December to play carols and sing for the residents). Aaron loves sports, history, youth group, eating, and playing and relaxing with his dad. The poor boy wept uncontrollably at Evan’s wedding. Though he loves his new sister-in-law and is happy for Evan, the wedding signified a big change for him, as he and Evan have become best friends in the last few years.

We took our annual summer holiday in Harbor Springs, Michigan this July. Phil served again as the vicar of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a summer chapel there, for three Sundays. This was our sixth year in Harbor, and we are so grateful for the opportunity to relax there and for our Saint John’s friends. This year, we had the particular pleasure of spending part of our time there with Evan and Kristin and Andy and Robin Torok and their children! It’s always interesting having three thirteen-year-olds running around, especially since Aaron was born within an hour of twins Andrew and Ashley Torok.

In closing, I would like to convey something that Phil taught our friends at Saint Francis at the Adult Forum on Sunday. As we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, I am astounded by the paradox that the Most High, who creates the universe by speaking a word, becomes an infant. For our word infancy comes from the Latin word infans, which literally means, “not speaking.” It may be entirely inappropriate for Milton to chide the muse as he does, and his competitiveness is unseemly, but he has our sympathies even so.

See how from far upon the Eastern road

The Star-led wizards haste with odors sweet:

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet.

The poet sees the magi bearing their gifts as they follow the Star of Bethlehem to the manger, and he (being Milton!) wants to beat them to the scene. So I wonder. If I could outrun the magi to lay words at the wordless one’s feet, what would they be? Words of thanksgiving. For him. And for you. For “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, / And say my glory was I had such friends.”

Blessings,

Victoria Ellsworth (for Phil, Evan, Kristin, Gabriel, Gillian, Aaron, and dog Maddie)

O Blessed Lord Jesus, our choicest gift, our dearest guest; Let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for you and yours, but quiet homes of prayer and praise, where you may find the best company, where needful cares of life are wisely ordered and put away, and where wide, sweet spaces are kept for you. So when you come again, O Blessed One, may you find all things ready, and your servants waiting for no new master, but for one long loved and known. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

John Milton, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, line 15.

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, line 22.

W. B. Yeats, The Municipal Gallery Revisited, lines 54-55.

We still have this half-buried conviction that church is a place where, at least at this time of year, we ought to be able to feel at home. We turn up, tired and overwrought, perhaps, still thinking vaguely about what we haven’t done and need to do before tomorrow. And then the story unfolds. Yes, this is our story, and yes, we can for a moment believe that this birth makes a difference. Yes, God cares about the kind of world we want to see and his faithful love is the basis of what makes a really liveable life. And no, we don’t have to do anything for this time except take it in. There are no entrance qualifications. The door of Jesus’s stable is open and anyone can come in and sit down.

None of this – I can hear the atheist protesting – means it’s true, surely? Not in itself, no. But it suggests that, if God is a “delusion”, as some would like us to believe, then quite a lot more of our human life is a delusion as well, including many of our deepest values and our hopes for forgiveness and peace. All sorts of things will make up your mind about whether it is true or not – and naturally I want people to believe it is and I’m happy to have the arguments. But you will never understand why it might matter for it to be true unless you can take in what the Christmas story is saying to us about who we are and the world we live in.

So, arrive early! There are millions who still want to ask these questions and hear the story. And there are millions for whom it’s not just a piece of our “heritage” – a stately home to visit – but a place to live. God is for life, not just for Christmas.

R Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, December 24, 2007