Foreword: When Christmas Doesn't "Feel Like Christmas"

     Each of us has at some time said, "It doesn't really feel like Christmas this year."  We feel that we deserve to feel a special glow, and we feel that it's not our fault if we don't have it.

     After all, we've done all the things we're supposed to do to feel the nebulous emotion known as "the Christmas spirit."  We've participated in church Christmas programs.  We've put up enough lights and other decorations to electrify a third-world village.  We've whipped out our credit cards more often than Annie Oakley whipped out her six-shooter, buying gifts and, with each purchase, crossing another name from our Christmas list.  We've dropped our spare change into the kettles of Salvation Army volunteers.  We've painted on smiles when Christmas carolers showed up at our door during our favorite television program—while secretly envying Quasimodo for getting away with dumping molten lead on his unwelcome visitors.  We've even found time to listen to Christmas-themed sermons and sing hymns about the Baby Jesus, angelic beings, shepherds, and three kings—or whatever (and how many) the mysterious gift-bearers were—in church services.

     If I've left out anything, we've probably done that as well—or have we?  Are we leaving something out?

     With roughly equal measures of pathos and tongue in cheek, Ebenezer Christian and the Three Christmas Spirits is the story of a Christian family that was completely wrapped up in Christmas celebrations, and thinking that they enjoyed it, until three Christmas spirits showed them that Christmas isn't a diversion from the problems of real life; the true meaning of Christmas is the answer to the problems of real life.

Chapter 1: The Family that Loved Christmas

    No one in Bedford Falls loved Christmas more than Ebenezer Christian and his wife Mary Martha, and few were more active in the First Baptist Church of Bedford Falls.

     Most months of the year, Mary Martha attended a women's Bible study group every Tuesday night, choir practice every Wednesday night, and she visited shut-ins every Saturday. She was among the first to volunteer for church bake-offs and other church-related activities.

     After the end of Thanksgiving, however, Mary Martha was busy every night with the choir, practicing for the church Christmas program. Since she spent her weekdays as an administrative assistant (that's what they call secretaries these days) to the Bedford Falls High School principal, she was left with little time to call her own.

     She usually spent her free time watching a set of video discs which gave her Biblical insights on how to lose weight. I'll bet most of you didn't know that the Lord is vitally interested in keeping women as watchable as possible or that God feels that He must subscribe to the ever-changing societal dictates of how much weight a woman should carry; but the yappy woman you see on these discs makes a very convincing case for it. It's only a matter of time before we hear of a line of products called Rose of Sharon Cosmetics.

     Ebenezer Christian was especially fond of Christmas and church activities, though in the last few years, he saw fit to drop out of the choir. His voice had been getting less appealing, and the choir director diplomatically suggested that he sing a bit more softly. One night at choir practice, he moved his lips without making a sound, and the choir director said that was the best the choir had ever performed.

     After that, Ebenezer Christian decided he was better suited for teaching Sunday school. At his church, classes are segregated by gender in order to test their faith. Undeniably, more teenagers and unmarried adults prefer going to churches that offer some prospect of meeting a girlfriend or boyfriend. Nonetheless, that's not the reason people should want to go to church. First Baptist Church of Bedford Falls takes the position that, if worshiping the Lord isn't your sole reason for going to church, you shouldn't go.

     In church services, and at other church functions, the pastor (or someone else) usually called upon Ebenezer to offer prayers from the congregation. You see, after years of practice, he had become very good at public prayers.

     He used to save up all his prayers for the occasions when he was called upon to pray, but he sometimes had a hard time remembering the entire prayer list that had lengthened during the day (or week). Then he discovered that by praying about those matters as they arose, he at least had fixed them in his mind for future reference. Thus, when someone called upon him to pray, he was better able to remember his prayer list. It didn't bother him that he'd already prayed about these matters before; the important thing is, he was capable of offering impressive prayers when the need arose.

     By observing others at prayer, and with much practice, he was able to make his prayers more eloquent. He could easily rattle off such phrases as, “We humbly beseech Thee," and such words as propitiation. Members of the congregation would get goose bumps by the way Ebenezer Christian's voice trembled when he spoke Jesus' name in prayer; and, when he spoke the name of God, his voice rumbled across the room like thunder from the clouds over Mount Sinai.

     Everyone at Bedford Falls Baptist Church agreed (or, at least, no one disagreed) that Ebenezer Christian's public prayers were truly inspirational; and all who voiced an opinion on the matter took this as evidence that he stood in good with the Lord.

     All manner of ad hoc programs come up at church, and Ebenezer Christian was always happy to get involved, whenever his schedule allowed.

     During his stint as a department store Santa, his wife Mary Martha brought him a yellow ribbon to sign for a member who was getting out of prison after almost two years of incarceration. (Incarceration is the kinder and gentler term for the slammer. There they used to punish prisoners by feeding them bread and water. Nowadays, prisoners are rewarded by serving them croissants and Perrier. It's amazing how French words can turn hardship into pleasure.)

     Oh, no, don't get the wrong idea. The church member wasn't a criminal or anything like that. About two years earlier, in a nearby city, he had double-parked his car. That's all he did. He wasn't even in the car at the time of the accident. Another driver drove around his car, slammed head-on into a car that was coming from the other direction, and the second driver was killed instantly.

     The churchgoer was unfortunate enough to get a judge known as "Maximum John" Letourneau as well as a prosecutor who'd had political ambitions. His family responsibilities, piety, and fidelity to the church were not even taken into consideration (the latter two may even have worked against him). Five years was the penalty, but, in less than two, the Lord saw fit to have this good man released on parole.

     Everyone, especially Ebenezer Christian, felt that the yellow ribbon party would be a great Christmas present for a persecuted Christian. On the yellow ribbon that was displayed with his signature, Ebenezer Christian wrote, "It's okay. It could have happened to anybody."

     Most times of the year, Ebenezer Christian's life was every bit as packed with church activities as Mary Martha's. The three weeks leading up to Christmas, however, was a special time for him. You see, he garnered four weeks of vacation time each year from his work as a county agricultural agent, and he used three of those four weeks to work as a department store Santa.

     Ebenezer worked long hours during those three weeks, but he was well-paid. He made almost as much money in three weeks as Santa Claus as he did the rest of the year as an agricultural agent.

     He was this well-paid for several reasons.

     He looked the part. He was a jolly, roly-poly man with a full white beard. Once his beard was properly bleached and curled, and Ebenezer was fitted into a bright, red costume lined with white fake fur, he looked just like the symbol that has been used by a certain soft drink company since the Great Depression.

     He acted the part. He enjoyed the attention he got from children, and he had thoroughly absorbed the Santa training the department store had given him.

     Finally, in keeping with his Santa training, he was familiar with the store's entire line of toys and other items that applied to children. He knew how to encourage the children to "want" only the things the store had in stock. If an appreciable number of children asked for the same item that the store didn't sell, he dutifully reported it to his manager. If possible, the store would have it on the shelves in time for Christmas.

     It somewhat bothered Ebenezer Christian that he had to work Sundays as well as other days. Still, didn't Jesus Himself say that it's all right to work on the Sabbath if the situation warrants it? Since Ebenezer and Martha were tithers, he was able to give as much to the church in December than in all other months combined. He also used much of his December windfall to lavish expensive gifts on his family and, yes, to pay for his daughter's college education.

     Buffy Christian attended nearby Bailey Christian College, where she was studying to become a missionary. Ever since she was thirteen, she "had a burden" (that's the Christian jargon for it) to go to China, to express the Lord's love for the Chinese people and to bring them to know and love Him.

     Ebenezer and Mary Martha had a younger son, Enoch, who'd be attending college in a few years.

   So, you see, for all the good Ebenezer Christian's extra income did to further the Lord's Kingdom on Earth, he was sure that the Lord smiled upon his Sunday labor.

Chapter 2: An Uncomfortable Encounter

     Though it was no more than a twenty-five-minute walk from his home to Stewart's Department Store downtown, Ebenezer Christian preferred to drive. Oh, no, it's not that he was lazy—far from it. It's just that he preferred not to pass—and verbally encounter—certain people who made him feel uneasy.

     On Christmas Eve morning, however, Martha Christian's car was in the shop for repairs, and Ebenezer had graciously allowed her to use his own. Poor Ebenezer had to walk, at the risk of encountering "those people.”

     The first was a Salvation Army volunteer who had positioned herself in just such a spot that anyone crossing the street to Stewart's Department Store had to pass her way. Ebenezer Christian didn't have anything against the Salvation Army; in fact, it was quite the opposite. He deeply admired the Salvation Army and its volunteers.

     His mother had been a sharecropper's daughter during the Great Depression; and Ebenezer’s father, several uncles and even an aunt had served in the Second World War. Others in his family, including Ebenezer himself, had served in other wars. When news of a loved one's fate was elusive, they would contact the Salvation Army. The family knew that they could depend on the Salvation Army—more than anyone else—to help.

     Ebenezer Christian had known people who had lost everything they'd owned in fires, hurricanes or other calamities. In every instance, the Salvation Army was there—often when no one else was there to help. He remembered that, after Hurricane Camille had devastated homes and lives along the Gulf Coast, a certain other well-known organization of Christian origins (with a much larger advertising budget, hence, better publicity) was there selling sandwiches. The Salvation Army was giving sandwiches away.

     When Ebenezer Christian was a college student, he had served as a Salvation Army volunteer during one Christmas vacation and once during the summer. He was struck by the observation that the most generous givers to the Salvation Army seemed to be those who had less to give.

     Quite possibly because they were the ones most acquainted with poverty and hardships, they were the ones most acquainted with the work of the Salvation Army.

     For those reasons, and for reasons too numerous to mention here, it had been a way of life in Ebenezer Christian's family (since long before Ebenezer was born) never to pass a Salvation Army volunteer without dropping some money into the volunteer's donation kettle. He wished, however, that he could encounter them less often. When he could foresee such occasions as this (that is, his inability to avoid Salvation Army volunteers by driving past them), he made it a point to carry enough quarters for him to drop a little something into each kettle he passed.

     On the eve of this particular morning, though, he'd had no way of knowing he'd need the obligatory quarters. So, when he reached the kettle nearest Stewart's Department Store and dug deep into his pocket, past his keys, all he could find was a dime, a nickel and three pennies.

     Ebenezer Christian stood there looking at his paltry eighteen cents. The careworn yet benign-looking Salvation Army volunteer looked blankly past him courteously pretending not to notice.  Surely, she must have noticed him, and this thought caused him some discomfort. He was torn between feeling cheap and reaching in his wallet at handing over a whole dollar. Just this once, he reasoned after what seemed a lengthy self-debate, he could spring for a dollar. That meant, however, that he'd have to be especially careful to avoid Salvation Army volunteers for the rest of the day.

     As he reached for his wallet, he thought he detected a flicker of hope on the woman's face. When he opened his wallet and peeked inside, he didn't see any one-dollar bills: only two fives and four twenties. At the same time his face fell, he sensed that the volunteer's face also seemed to fall a little. At least he was sure that she was more studious in pretending not to notice his deliberations. He had to give five dollars—that’s five dollars, mind you—or feel cheap for the rest of the day.

     In a Herculean feat of will, he angrily snatched a bill from his wallet and stuffed it into the kettle. The Salvation Army volunteer beamed, "Oh, thank you, sir! Merry Christmas!"

     As Ebenezer Christian, stormed in the direction of Stewart's Department Store, he grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas!"

Chapter 3: Another Uncomfortable Encounter

    Ebenezer Christian was barely ten paces closer to Stewart's Department store when he was accosted by a half dozen or so middle-aged men and women carrying protest signs and handing out brochures. The signs bore such messages as, "STOP FINANCING SLAVERY!" and, "DON'T BUY SLAVE LABOR GOODS!"

     He'd seen those bomb-throwers before. They were members of the local chapter of some outfit that he had heard was a hate group—at least it was convenient to think of them as a hate group. Ebenezer Christian was particularly incensed that they shamelessly were spreading their brand of poison during the Christmas season: a time of peace, comfort, and joy.

     As Ebenezer Christian approached Stewart’s Department store, one of them—a heavy-set man with salt-and-pepper hair and a beard—shoved a brochure at him. "This store sells items made by slave labor," the man said almost mechanically. "If you buy these products, you're supporting slavery."

     Before the man could say another word, Ebenezer Christian exploded, "It's Christmas Eve! Doesn't the birth of Jesus Christ mean anything to you? Are you so lacking in decency that you can't love your enemies even at this time of year? At last, sir, have you no shame?"

     Dr. Salt-and-pepper was about to say something, but another protester stepped forward. A little older than the bearded man, he was bald, with his remaining hair parted low enough on the side of his head that he could brush some of it across his baldness. Mr. Baldy haltingly drawled to Ebenezer Christian, "Did you know that Jesus quoted the book of Isaiah more than any other book in the Holy Scriptures?"

     "So?!"

     "Isaiah spoke of proclaiming liberty to the captive. It's not just a good idea; it's a commandment."

     A short, (shall we say?) overly-buxom protester, who had been quietly holding a sign suddenly chirped, "People in slave labor camps can't have a merry Christmas." Ms. Plump smiled a little sheepishly and fell silent.

     A petite, sign-wielding protester with too much make-up and hair brushed back in a severe style was the next one to speak. "Not only that," she snapped with an air of superiority, "but it's illegal to import slave labor goods. It's allowed, anyway because the countries where they're made happen to be major trading partners!"

     Ebenezer Christian shot back, "I can't believe our government would allow anything like that! This is America! "Where do you get your information?"

     Miss Uppity glanced at Dr. Salt-and-pepper, who assumed the air of a college professor commencing a lecture. "According to Section Three-oh-seven B of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930," he confidently began, sounding more like a tape recording than a human being, "goods, wares and articles that are manufactured, mined or assembled, wholly or in part, by compulsory labor may not be imported into the United States."

     "Well, 1930 was a long time ago. I wouldn't think that a law that old would still be on the books. Besides, you said the law used the words `compulsory labor.’ That's not the same thing as slave labor."

     "It's still on the books; and, although not all compulsory labor is slave labor, all slave labor is compulsory," Dr. Salt-and-pepper said. Boy, is he brainwashed, thought Ebenezer Christian. That fanatic has an answer for everything, and all his answers sound pre-recorded!

     If Ebenezer Christian were a gambler, we'd say that he still had an ace up his sleeve. "Well, uh," he fumbled, "you haven't shown me any proof that there's such a law as that. Do you have a copy of it I could take home and read?" He stressed that last phrase in order to give himself an excuse to avoid discussing the matter any further.

     Dr. Salt-and-pepper brandished a small sheet of paper from his coat pocket and handed it to Ebenezer Christian. "This is a copy of Section 307(b)," he smiled. "For the rest of the act, you can call it up on the Internet address at the bottom of the page. For further information about Patriots' Dream—our organization—you may e-mail us, phone us or see our web page. The information is on the back of this sheet." Dr. Salt-and-pepper was smiling more broadly. For the first time since the encounter, Ebenezer Christian also was smiling because this meant he could escape.

     Ebenezer Christian smiled again, wished the fanatical bomb-throwers a merry Christmas and hurried into Stewart's Department Store, straight to the nearest trash can. Before he could throw the bomb-throwers' printed matter away, he noticed yet another fanatic stationed at the trash can.

     This one was a lean, bespectacled man wearing a kepa—a Jewish skullcap. He was quietly fishing Patriots' Dream flyers out of the trash can, forming them into a neat stack to be handed out—again—to passersby. He caught Ebenezer Christian's eye, apparently aware of Christian's plans for the flyer. Rather than hand it to the man, indirectly helping the man spoil someone elses Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Christian folded it and placed it in his shirt pocket.

     "Don't expect me to join your outfit," Ebenezer Christian muttered. "I'm a Christian, and Christians shouldn't get involved in politics."

     Having achieved a sour enough mood to strangle someone, it now was time for Ebenezer Christian to play Santa Claus. He would get his beard curled, climb into his Santa suit and somehow have to spread Christmas cheer to hundreds of children for the next ten hours or more.

Chapter 4: The Morning of Christmas Eve

     There's no need to trouble the reader with the details of how Ebenezer Christian spent his morning. It was just like the morning of any other department store Santa. For the benefit of readers who haven't been exposed to this peculiar element of Western culture, I'll give a brief description of it.

     Throughout the morning, a long line of small children stood before "Santa,” each child waiting for his turn to sit on the great man's lap and tell what he wanted for Christmas. For a fee, one of Santa's assistants took a photograph of the moment for the parents to treasure. The child might also like to see the photo.

     For each child, Santa had to act jolly and seek an opportunity to exhibit his trademark laugh, and to make the "Ho! Ho! Ho!" (That's no more or fewer than three Ho’s.) sound realistic without being loud enough to scare the child.

     Some of the smaller ones were shy about the prospects of sitting on his lap, and some were fearful enough to cry. In such cases as these, Santa did his best to calm the child enough to get him to place his posterior in the desired spot. It meant much more to the parents than it did to the child, and it meant even more to the department store. A successfully kindly Santa often spelled the difference between a sale and a waste of time.

     Being "a successfully kindly Santa" also involved convincing the each child that he—Ebenezer Christian—was the "real" Santa, and that the dozens of others on the streets and elsewhere (especially at the town's other department stores) were merely "Santa's assistants." If Santa's beard was real, snow-white, and fluffy; and if his large frame were not augmented by a pillow, this went a long way toward convincing the child and making money for the department store.

     Of course, in today's fitness-obsessed climate, people frown upon genuinely fat Santas; so, Santa must be large and still be physically fit. Ebenezer Christian maintained a burly frame by regular exercise, while he avoided the foods and exercises that would tend to make him lean.  All this is why Ebenezer Christian was able to command big bucks for his role as Santa Claus.

     (Parenthetically—which is an intriguing way to begin passage found in parentheses—the Santa Claus myth originated with a fellow called Saint Nicholas: a long-ago bishop known for his piety, good deeds and generosity. His nature was very much akin to that of the founders of the Salvation Army in the West or the Tzu-chi Foundation in Taiwan.

     (You may have a little trouble reconciling Nicholas' saintly image with that of the contemporary image of Santa Claus, whose function is to generate a fortune in sales for department stores and the major soft drink company I mentioned earlier. Don't try. Just accept that, on Ebenezer Christian's December job, a docile populace lined up to be milked of their earnings.  Most of them were card-carrying debt slaves for whom the term credit card could be defined as "the gift that keeps on taking." In keeping with the well-advertised spirit of Christmas, these efforts to separate the sheeple from their savings, recent earnings, and future earnings took place all day long and well into the first few hours of the night.)

     Even Santa Claus must take toilet breaks, and he must fill his burly frame at lunchtime. Begging the excuse that he must convey the morning's wish lists to elves who were awaiting his instructions, Ebenezer Christian rushed to the employees' restroom and changed into his street clothes.

     Anonymity would have been impossible, since there was no way he could have taken off his fluffy, white beard, which, as I've mentioned, was real. Thus, Ebenezer ordered his lunch from the employees' break room. From among the two fives and three twenties he had in his wallet, he handed a stock clerk a five for the lunch. Upon receipt of his lunch and his change, Ebenezer Christian wolfed down his lunch and left the break room to attend to two personal matters.

Chapter 5: Yet a Third Uncomfortable Encounter

       Ebenezer Christian handled the first order of personal business fairly quickly.

     Earlier in the day, he had handed the key to his home to the department store's electrician with the understanding that he would install a chandelier over the grand piano while everyone was out of the house. It would be a surprise for his wife Mary Martha Christian.

     He had given Mary Martha Christian the grand piano the previous Christmas. The silver candelabra Ebenezer Christian had given her during one of his pre-Santa Christmas seasons would be moved to a permanent position on the mahogany dinner table that had been Ebenezer Christian's gift to her two Christmases ago.

     The electrician returned Ebenezer Christian's key to him and reported that his mission had been accomplished without a hitch.

     Ebenezer Christian's next stop was the jewelry department of Stewart's Department Store.  There, he approached the sales clerk, a college student who had been hired for the Christmas season. "May I help you?" she smiled for the six-hundredth time that day. (Her mouth was getting a little sore from all that grinning when nothing was funny.)

   "Yes, please," Ebenezer Christian replied. "Could I see the women's necklaces with crucifixes?"

     "Excuse me? What are crucifixes?"

     "A crucifix is a cross."

     "Oh. There's very popular this year," she said automatically, for everything people request is supposed to be very popular that year. "Would you like one with or without the little man on it?"

     "The `little man,’ as you call him," came the icy reply, "is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

     "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. It's just that a lot of women want to wear crosses for reasons of style. To them it doesn't have any religious meaning. A lot of them would rather have a cross without the—um—Jesus.”

     Ebenezer Christian heard a man's voice say to him: "And a lot of people would rather have Jesus without the cross."

     He turned and looked at the man who'd made that remark. He recognized the man as Cooper Grady—some garage mechanic who fancied himself a minister. He was a short, wizened little man with a pronounced stoop and deep wrinkles that made him look much older than his fifty-odd years. His nasal-labial folds made his mouth look much larger than it really was, and his face was etched with a permanent, beatific smile. Once a week, Cooper Grady cleaned enough grease from his hands to stand before a few dozen hillbillies congregating in a cinder-block building, where he impersonated a Pentacostal minister.

     Grady and his wife lived simply on their small income. It was said that they spend most of their free time visiting the sick and the needy, including those who attended other churches or no church at all.

     He certainly couldn't be faulted for his goodness. Ebenezer Christian was turned off by other things about the man. How, for example, could a man who'd barely finished high school, and whose poor grammar bore witness to his lack of education, presume to know the Lord's will to the degree that he could instruct others in it? Ebenezer Christian himself possessed a master's degree and had taken college courses in religion. There was nothing, he thought, that this garage mechanic could teach him about the Lord's will.

     Pentecostals are noted for their unrestrained practices in church, including such improprieties as unintelligible babbling, arm-waving, and (here I must caution the reader to brace himself) dancing. Those who are particularly ignorant and especially out of touch with reality—now get this: They believe that the Lord performs actual miracles the way He did in Biblical times.

     Ebenezer Christian had learned in one of his religion classes in college that people today should take a more refined view of miracles. For example, when a grape vine draws water from the ground, changes it into grape juice, and it later becomes wine, it all takes place by a process created by God. Is that any less miraculous than Jesus' miracle at Cana? People in Biblical times needed miracles of the Biblical type, Ebenezer Christian learned, but people today no longer need them to understand the Lord's nature.

     Ebenezer Christian was once arm-twisted into attending a Pentecostal Christmas service a few years earlier, and he was aghast at their blasphemy. At one point in the service, when they danced and capered about like lunatics, Cooper Grady had the effrontery to say that the angels must have behaved in a similar manner when they announced Jesus' birth to the shepherds.

     (Everyone knows, of course, that when Biblical angels gave messages to men, they always stood regally and spoke in sonorous intonations.)

     "I read a newspaper article the other day," Cooper Grady said almost carelessly.
     "And what did it say?" The words escaped Ebenezer Christian's lips with equal carelessness. He didn't really want to know.

     "It said that the Christmas capital of America is Rockefeller Center." Ebenezer Christian looked at him blankly. Cooper Grady continued, "People are always saying they wish the Christmas spirit could last throughout the year. In a way, it does because, to most people—including Christians—Christmas is more a secular holiday than a celebration of Jesus' birth.  Most people spend the entire year paying interest on their credit cards for Christmas gifts they buy. You're holding the Christmas spirit in your hand."

     It took Ebenezer Christian less than a second to look at the bank card in his hand. When he looked up again, Cooper Grady was gone. Ebenezer Christian quickly looked around and asked the sales lady, "Where is he?"

     "Where's who?"

     "The little man that was just here."

     "Oh," she said painting her professional smile back onto her face, relieved that she hadn't lost a sale. "It's right here." She was referring to the crucifix.

     "No, I mean—um—Never mind."

     "Are you all right?"

      "Oh, yes, of course. I'll—um—I’ll look at the cross later." As he turned to leave, he turned back to the sales clerk and muttered, "Merry Christmas."

     “Merry Christmas," she beamed, and she drew out the next few words, "and have a nice day!”

Chapter 6: Santa Claus Gets Fired

     The parry with Cooper Grady had cost Ebenezer Christian some valuable time, and he hastily beat a path for the dressing room. Rapidly climbing into his Santa suit, he ran into the shopping area, and then slowed to a fast walk so as not to appear undignified.

     As he sat on Santa's throne, Ebenezer Christian had the gnawing feeling that he'd overlooked something important. He quickly took a mental inventory of his garments. Good. Nothing was missing. Still, he was bothered by that annoying "something.” What was it?

     Quite a crowd had gathered during the few minutes prior to his afternoon shift. There were more than forty children, plus parents, plus passersby who had stopped just long enough to see how "realistic" the Stewart's Department Store Santa really was. About 150 people must have gathered at that spot, at that time, just to see him.

     The first child of the afternoon sat on his lap. She was a frail little tyke, perhaps three years old. Her mother had had to do a little coaxing to get her obviously frightened child to sit on "Santa's" lap. Ebenezer Christian beamed at her as cheerfully as he knew how. Since he was still a little annoyed at the thought that he'd forgotten something, he wasn't able to beam as brightly as usual.   Ebenezer Christian gently chuckled and said, "Well, you're a pretty young lady. What is your name?"

     As the little girl was trying to muster the courage to answer, some numbers rushed through Ebenezer Christian's head. He'd had four twenty-dollar bills and two fives in his wallet at the time of his encounter with the Salvation Army volunteer. When he paid for his lunch, he had three twenties and two fives in his wallet. That could mean only one thing: He had given the Salvation Army volunteer a twenty-dollar bill instead of a five. Worse yet, he had originally intended to give her only a quarter!

     There in the middle of Stewart's Department Store, in the presence of forty small children and more than a hundred other onlookers, Ebenezer Christian heard himself shout two words that forever ended his career as a department store Santa. The first word was, "Oh-hh," and there was nothing especially wrong with that; but the next word had four letters and had something to do with a daily bodily function.

     It was one of those moments of crisis when the senses are acute in the extremes. To Ebenezer Christian, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Even as the air rushed from his lungs, and his lips began to form the first syllable, he mind screamed that he was going to say something he'd regret. The words slowly rumbled across the store and echoed from the walls and back to his ears, but, even as he said them, he was powerless to stop them.

     The frail child on his lap immediately started crying and reaching for her mother, who immediately snatched him from the lap of that "sick man.” The uproar from the rest of the crowd, who, only a second earlier, had nurtured the expectation of a "Hallmark moment," was similarly disapproving—most of the crowd, anyway. Some college students wearing torn jeans, sporting brightly-died, spiked hair and jewelry that pierced their faces were far more approving in their response. They laughed, pronounced it "cool," and promised each other that they'd tell everyone else about it.

     Mr. Capra, the store manager arrived breathlessly and rushed poor Ebenezer Christian from the scene. Profusely apologizing to onlookers, the distraught merchant kept repeating something about Santa "not feeling well," and that he'd feel better soon.

     Poor Ebenezer Christian was fairly dragged to the stock room (where his street clothes were hung on a coat rack with care, not expecting that "Santa" soon would be there;) thereupon the store manager and two youthful lackeys quickly stripped Ebenezer Christian of his clothes and his dignity. They shoved his street clothes into his arms and unceremoniously pushed him out the back door and into an alley.

     The alley was as filthy and cluttered as any alley he'd seen. At first, it appeared deserted, though it looked as though the nightfall would find it populated with large rats, feral cats, and perhaps winos.

     As Ebenezer Christian gathered his wits, clothing still bundled in his arms, he suddenly noticed that he wasn't alone. A ragged, unkempt man was sitting beside a trash can, leisurely partaking of the grape. The two men noticed each other at the same time. The wino did a double-take at Ebenezer Christian's unconventional attire, uncertainly peered at him through his alcoholic haze, and then turned to study the label on his bottle. He wasn't sure he wanted to buy that brand again.

     Ebenezer Christian hurriedly dressed and went home.

Chapter 7: Santa Gets Replaced

     Before following Ebenezer Christian home, let's take a final look at the scenes at Stewart's Department Store.

     It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve—the busiest time of year for Stewart's Department Store, and they had no Santa Claus. They were desperate. One of the clerks suggested that they hire Robert Mobley.

     "Who?" everyone else asked. The name was unfamiliar to them. Robert Mobley was a street vendor. Ever since the day after Thanksgiving, he had been sitting in front of the store selling Christmas paper, ribbons, pencils, and such. For a fee, he'd wrap presents, which place him in more direct competition with Stewart's Department Store. He'd often been chased away because the presence of poor people tends to dampen Christmas shoppers' feelings of comfort and joy, and is therefore bad for business.  

     (Before we further proceed with our introduction to this man, we should note that, unlike most folks with the surname Mobley, he pronounced it MOB-ly, rather than MOBE-ly.)

     For most of his adult life, Mr. Mobley had worked as an assistant manager for the Bedford Falls branch of Decker's Pharmacy. Decker's, we should interject, was the largest store chain of its kind in that part of the country.

     Mr. Mobley never wanted to become more than assistant manager, although, when he was younger, he'd often had opportunities to move up. You see, he was shrewd enough to follow the homey advice, "Look before you leap," and here's what he saw:

     As it was at most big businesses, there were three levels of management at Decker's. The lower level managers were the store managers and their assistants. Regional managers occupied the middle level. Upper level managers all congregated in a single building up on Mount Olympus, or some such place as that. From their lofty perch, the upper level managers issued directives to all below, oblivious to everything except the reports that came across their desks. Thus isolated from the realities of the day-to-day existence of their lowest-level employees, they were largely unaware of (and, for the most part, unconcerned with) how their directives impacted their lowest-level employees.

     If a gold coin is dropped from a height of ten feet, it's a valuable and much-appreciated gift. If dropped from five hundred feet, though, it's a deadly missile. This principle becomes more ominous when we consider that, in business, gold is supposed to flow in the other direction.

     At Decker's Pharmacy, middle-level management may be compared to a minefield or shark-infested waters. Each manager is struggling toward the promised safety of the upper level, while he hopes those around him will be the casualties. If the man just ahead of you (there were no women at that level) stumbles and falls onto a mine, his grisly demise brings the ambitious middle-level manager six feet closer to his goal. To use the other analogy, if you can push someone else toward the outer edge of the cluster of swimmers, he will be eaten instead of you. In either analogy, survival required constant vigilance, an almost moment-by-moment struggle, and—above all else—no remorse or pity.

     A fair-minded store manager usually provided a sort of buffer between Mr. Mobley and the minefield (or, if you will, sharks) just a little higher up.

     For almost forty years, Mr. Mobley managed a reasonably comfortable existence for himself and his family. If he made no major mistake, he could count on a reasonably comfortable retirement from Edgar's.

     Alas, Mr. Mobley made one major mistake: He got old.

     Two years from the scheduled date of his retirement, he began to feel the pressure. Middle level management wanted him to take time out from his "free time"—without pay—to take additional training courses. Other burdens were placed upon him. His fair-minded store manager was replaced by someone who had ambitions for middle level management.

     The new manager, fully understanding the way things worked at Decker's Pharmacy, had his own metaphor for advancement. He climbed the ladder of success by kissing the feet of the ones above him and kicking the heads of those below him. If anyone near the same level as he were brash enough to reach for a ladder rung close to his own, that meant that only one of his rival's hands was holding on to a rung. It then would be a simple matter to step on his fingers and push the presumptuous competitor to his doom.

     Though the new manager never actually told anyone his philosophy of life and strategy for success, it soon became painfully apparent to all the skulls beneath him.

     Though Mr. Mobley could complain or tell of his troubles to friends, he'd never felt he could actually confide in anyone other than his wife. It was during this period that she died. As his children were all grown, Mobley—for the first time in over thirty years—was completely alone.

     It was an open-and-shut case of a business trying to force him into resigning in order to avoid paying retirement pay. They couldn't fire him without inviting a damaging lawsuit against themselves; but Mr. Mobley couldn't sue them unless they did fire him. All he had to do was outlast them.

     Chest pains, and a visit to the Veterans' Hospital (he had served his country in action during the Korean War) revealed that he couldn't outlast them. He turned in his resignation only six months before his scheduled retirement.

     He soon found himself living in a flop house on Enoree Avenue. The flop house, which once was a fine, upper-middle class home, had descended into dilapidation, perhaps to the embarrassment of the residents of mansions along the same street. The owner of the place was a kindly, elderly lady named Sarah Artemis, who shared half the downstairs area with fourteen dogs. Robert Mobley’s room had been the downstairs parlor. Skid row riffraff occupied the four upstairs bedrooms. There was but one bathroom—upstairs—for the five tenants.

     No one seemed to know if Robert Mobley had any living relatives. The clerk who'd suggested Robert Mobley as a replacement Santa Claus just happened to know the name because he had been present once when the store security guard signed the police document ordering Mr. Mobley’s arrest.

     Some troublesome do-gooder had bought him two business licenses: one that allowed him to vend his wares, and another that allowed him to wrap presents and related services. An organization of similar trouble-makers (the name of which I'll leave unmentioned) subsequently threatened to haul the management of Stewart's Department Store into court for harassing "the aforesaid Mr. Robert Edward Mobley." (That's the way lawyers talk. The author would wager that, when lawyers die, they must go to the "hereinafter.") Thereafter, Robert Mobley was the beneficiary of an uneasy truce between himself and his more prosperous competitor.

     In a pinch—which is one way to describe the predicament in which Stewart's Department Store then found itself—Robert Mobley looked as though he might pass for Santa Claus. He had a round belly from the low-cost, high-starch diet that was his usual fare. His bulbous nose, too, was a plus. His hair and beard were almost completely white. Though his beard seemed a little short, the beard—like Mobley himself—would have to do.

     Robert Mobley immediately became defensive when Mr. Capra stepping up to him to speak. When Mr. Capra began speaking in respectful tones, Mobley eyed him quizzically. Then the poor street vendor was made what seemed an extravagant offer for playing Santa Claus. Through a sheer act of will, he controlled himself, and his face didn't betray his excitement. He demanded twice that much, and the shocked store manager readily agreed.

     Robert Mobley reckoned that Prince Leopold of Austria had not demanded that much money for the ransom of Richard the Lionhearted.

     Only then did Robert Mobley dare show his pleasure. He broke into a smile that revealed every tooth: every crooked, rotten, or missing one of them. They were sure that this discovery also meant that Robert Mobley's breath could break the ornaments on a Christmas tree or knock out any child who was unfortunate enough to sit on his lap. That ended that. Mr. Capra and his lackeys quickly ducked inside the store, and Robert Mobley stoically resumed his customary pre-Christmas occupation.

Chapter 8: Santa Gets Replaced Again

     The parents in Stewart's Department Store were growing impatient, and the children already had grown restless. As the impatience and restlessness grew, so did the store manager's desperation. Soon the store's target consumers would drift away to another store, never to return that year.

     Mr. Capra weighed his options. Though he was skinny he could wear the costume with a pillow. Since he'd been relying on a fully-bearded Santa, there was no false beard. Perhaps he could cut open a pillowcase and glue its snowy-white contents to his face. No, it wouldn't look real enough; and, besides, the synthetic fibers would be itchy. He wouldn't be able to resist scratching, which would result in "Santa" shedding all over a child—a sensitive child. That would be worse than no Santa at all.

     While he stood there tearing at his lower lip and pondering his plight, he heard a voice. "Excuse me," a man said, "but I may be able to help you."

     "The public is not allowed in this part of the store," the manager said automatically. Turning toward the source of the voice, he was stunned at what he saw.

     The person who had spoken was a jolly-looking man just above five feet tall. He was a chubby fellow with a snowy-white beard that billowed like clouds—or like the smoke from the pipe he held firmly in his teeth. His cheeks and bulbous nose were a cheerful shade of pink, like someone who has just come in from the cold. His eyes twinkled, his manner was ebullient, and—as all were soon to learn—he had an infectious chuckle. Even in the clothes he was wearing, he looked the perfect Santa, and anyone who could have seen him would have been irresistibly drawn to him.

     There were, however, a few problems. As he was a pipe smoker, he'd have to brush his teeth and gargle with mouth wash before "going on" as Santa; and he'd have to agree to leave the pipe in the stock room. He was much shorter than Ebenezer Christian, so it was certain that he couldn't fit into the latter's Santa suit. The clothes he wore were, to say the least, controversial: fur, and not just fur lining! He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot. Would the children and their parents accept a Santa who wore something other than the trademark colors of the multinational corporation I've already mentioned? That would be one more problem.

     There was yet another thing: Flabbiness is unacceptable to contemporary shoppers, and this man was definitely flabby. In fact, when he laughed, his spare tire shook like a bowlful of jelly. That could be a problem.

     The store manager, who by now was in such a fit of desperation that he almost would have asked Ebenezer Christian to come back, decided that—flaws and all—this stranger would have to be his Santa Claus.

     It wasn't until later that Mr. Capra realized that he'd never actually asked the stranger to play Santa Claus, nor had the stranger mentioned it himself. He said not a word but went straight to his work. They would have to discuss the money later.

     The new Santa pleased everyone concerned (with one reservation, which I'll describe in a moment). The manager and clerks of Stewart's Department Store were relieved, the parents were charmed, and the children were so delighted that they didn't want to leave the store—which further pleased Mr. Capra and the sales clerks, the latter of whom were working on commission.

     Store insiders who were privy to events leading up to the hiring of this new Santa came to express their amazement at the store's good fortune. The stranger said only that it was something he felt he had to do: he didn't want to disappoint the children. If he was to be believed, that was his only motive. He'd never been a department store Santa before, nor had he ever wanted to be one.

     The one shortcoming this new Santa had was that he didn't use his privileged position to plug the store's toys. In fact, he even tried to dampen children's enthusiasm for certain popular toys.

     Among boys, one of the most popular toys was the UN Peacekeeping Action Figure (That's what they call dolls for boys: "action figures.") with such accessories as peacekeeping flamethrowers and grenade launchers. Another was the NATO peacekeeping bomber plane "that can level a city." Santa disliked both of these and asked what they had to do with "peace on earth and goodwill toward men."

     Likewise, he objected to hand-held computer games, which he said "rot your mind and cause children to become less interested in friendships." To this, the children generally replied that computer games gave them one more thing to discuss with their friends: that is, which one of them could rack up the most points.

     For many years, Bobbie dolls had been a popular means of promoting unhealthy attitudes in young female minds. Bobbie made a large carbon footprint with lots of clothes, friends, accessories, and, of course, a boyfriend named Kent. Would she have all these things—especially Kent—if she didn't have an unrealistically proportioned figure? No. They were all part of the same package.

   To satisfy the skeptics and to meet changes in the social climate, this year the Martel Company came out with a Bobbie-goes-off-her-diet doll. It didn't come with a Kent doll, presumably because she was a liberated woman. Self-styled liberated women, however, would not be mollified. They said that the absence of a Kent doll was due to Bobbie having gone off her diet. 
     In spite of Santa's best efforts to promote the Bobbie-goes-off-her-diet doll, it was less popular than the trailer trash Bobbie doll.

     Except as a gag gift, nobody wanted to buy a fat Bobbie doll or a trailer trash doll. That is, until kids discovered that they were the same size as the G.I. Joe action figure. Kids could then pretend that G.I. Joe was stressed from multiple deployments and dressed in Bobbie's clothing to get a discharge. They could also put the trailer trash Bobbie doll in G.I. Joe's uniform. The G.I. Joe doll, with no clothes on, could be the prisoner of war that the trailer trash G.I. doll led around on a leash, on all fours like a dog.

     The old man playing Santa said it was hard to decide which was more demoralizing to impressionable youths: the fantasy toys available to children or actual news events.

     What did this eccentric old man playing Santa Claus expect as payment for his services?  When asked, he just chuckled and said they should "give it to Jesus." When asked how such a thing as that is possible, he'd shrug, "The heart that truly loves always finds a way."

     Near closing time, the stranger was nowhere to be found. No one inside Stewart's Department Store had seen him leave. After some animated discussion with his sales clerks, Mr. Capra decided to place the man's payment—three crisp, new hundred-dollar bills—into a kettle with which a woman dressed in dark blue was collecting money for needy people. Ebenezer Christian had not intended to give her more than twenty-five cents. By a Christmas miracle, he directly and indirectly gave her $320.

     I said that no one inside Stewart's Department Store had seen the stranger leave. Although it may be a coincidence, a mass hallucination reportedly occurred in the alley outside of the store that same night.

     A gathering of (shall we say?) men of leisure were in the alley, observing Christmas the same way they observed many other days: passing around a bottle of inexpensive wine. The aforementioned short, chubby, bearded, elderly man, who was dressed rather unconventionally, sneaked out of Stewart's Department Store and entered the alley.

     Having a "live-and-let-live" philosophy of life, the men of leisure chose not to pay the stranger any attention—not until he placed two fingers to his mouth and loudly whistled. That very moment, the inebriates imagined that they saw a sleigh full of toys, drawn by eight flying reindeer, land right in the middle of the alley. Thereupon, the strange man jumped into the sleigh, whistled again, and the jolly fat man, his reindeer, and the sleigh flew away.

     Anyway, that was what they reported having seen. The day after Christmas, all of them told identical stories upon entering the Mid-State Council on Alcoholism to request admission for treatment. The last your author has heard, not one of them has changed his story, and not one has resumed his former hobby.

Chapter 9: Ebenezer Christian's Christmas Eve

       We shall now return to our protagonist, Ebenezer Christian.

     There are certain advantages to having some time off on Christmas Eve, and Ebenezer Christian was beginning to enjoy them.

     He called his wife, Mary Martha Christian, before coming home in order to lessen the shock of his wrecked career as Santa Claus. Upon his arrival at his spacious home on Elm Street, Mary Martha Christian expressed unreserved joy over the chandelier that hung above her grand piano. Over and over, she cooed, "Oh, Eb," (because that's what she called him) "you're so thoughtful!"

     Ebenezer Christian suggested that they take a drive around Bedford Falls looking at the Christmas lights. She and their daughter Buffy (who was home from college) were thrilled at the idea. Their son Enoch thought it was a dumb, boring idea and opted to stay home.

     Mary Martha Christian had more than the usual reasons for being thrilled: it would help take her mind off of a horrifying experience she'd had earlier that day.  Mary Martha Christian, Pastor Ananias, the pastor's wife Sapphira, and others were working to put away the costumes, set, and so forth, from that year's Christmas production.  When she stepped into the church sanctuary, her nostrils were assaulted by a nauseating odor. She immediately notified Pastor Ananias, Sapphira, and the others, and they investigated the sanctuary to discover the source.

     There they saw what they later were to describe as a horrible-looking Puerto Rican man and woman who smelled as if they hadn't taken a bath or changed clothes in weeks. The young couple had not actually identified themselves as Puerto Ricans, but the minister and his flock were sure they must have been. These church people at least were sure that the couple were not Cubans.  They had seen Cubans in the movies, such as "that girl with the big smile," and none of them looked as awful as these two; therefore, they reasoned, the homeless couple must have been Puerto Ricans.  

     Pastor Ananias and another man in the church knew a few Spanish words, and the vagrants spoke very little English, but this was enough for the church to learn that the two vagrants were on their way to Florida to find work, and they needed a place to stay. Pastor Ananias mustered up his kindest face and informed them of some homeless shelters within a few miles of the church.

     They knew of the shelters, and they'd tried to gain admittance. The trouble was, homeless shelters have a rule that men and women must stay in separate shelters. The vagrants said they couldn't accept this arrangement because the woman was pregnant and due to deliver almost any day.

     The fearful churchgoers were stunned by the revelation that the woman was pregnant. They had been reluctant to look at the couple, but this news drew their attention to her large belly. What a shame, they thought. Those two, who couldn't afford to feed and clothe themselves, were about to bring a baby into the world. They, who could not house themselves, were presuming to dictate to charitable citizens the terms of their free housing. To compound matters, they actually had tried to turn the house of the Lord into a flop house.

     With the support of all who witnessed the event, Pastor Ananias ordered them from the premises. "Esta muy frio afuera," the man pleaded. "Donde pasaremos la noche?"  The church members understood the words muy frio, donde and la noche, and they correctly reasoned that the man had said something like, "It's very cold outside. Where will we spend the night?"

     "Swallow your pride," the minister intoned, "and accept the generosity of the homeless shelters. We at this church will pray for you, but that's all we can do." Afterwards, Pastor Ananias told Sapphira and the other the church members who were present that, although these two people might have been honest (he clearly doubted it), allowing transients to roam the church unsupervised at night would set an unwise precedent. The sight of all the priceless articles that adorned every wall and niche of the church, and well as the costly furnishings; and the knowledge of all the sterling silver ceremonial items that the church possessed would certainly prove too great a temptation for some future transient to resist.

     Mary Martha Christian was still trembling hours later when she told the story to Ebenezer Christian. "No one could have, or should have, done more for them," he consoled her. "We pay taxes to take care of people like that."

     Communities strung with Christmas lights testify to the truth of the poet E. Merrill Root's observation that the only things that are always new are the things that are very old. There's not a thing I could tell you about the myriad, multi-colored lights strung across almost every building and large tree in Bedford Falls. We see them every year, yet they always seem new. They're like the smiles of friends we had not seen since the previous Christmas.

     Even Burke and Hare's Funeral Home looked cheerful.

     Every city and most large towns boast certain locals who have added so many decorations to their homes and yards each year, that their cluttered homes and lawns have become sightseeing attractions. Often, they've accumulated so many decorations that they see fit to leave them up all year round and accept donations to pay the electric bills and to buy more decorations.

     Clifton Douglas served that purpose for Bedford Falls.

     All over his house and yard, and even into the kitchen and the living room, one could find several of every Christmas image anyone could imagine. A larger-than-life-sized Santa with his sleigh waved from the roof, and countless Santas and elves were elsewhere. Every Disney character you could name filled the yard. Thousands of lights covered the house and stretched along cables to every corner of the front yard like so many bowers. The place even had a manger scene.

     Everyone who didn't live in Clifton Douglas' neighborhood liked Clifton Douglas's house and yard. One would think that, in the spirit of Christmas, his neighbors would have been more than happy to accept all the traffic moving slowly enough to enjoy the sight of a thoroughly Christmassy house and yard. One would have thought that, during the season of peace, joy, and love, they would have been more hospitable toward people who saw fit to park all along both sides of the street and even in people's driveways and yards.

     Yes, Ebenezer Christian was understanding enough to see that all these extra cars were somewhat inconvenient; but, surely, he thought, anyone who was filled with the Christmas spirit could accept it all in good cheer.

     The whole Christian family felt relaxed and filled with joy, as Ebenezer Christian drove his carload of Christians to their spacious home on Elm Street and maneuvered his car into its position in their three-car garage. Then Ebenezer Christian slapped his own forehead and groaned, "Oh, no!"

     "What is it?" the others all asked at once.

"Buffy, I meant to get you a silver crucifix; but, in the confusion this afternoon, I completely forgot! I'm sorry. I don't have a Christmas present for you."

     Buffy smiled and hugged his neck. "Oh, yes, you do, Daddikins," she said. "I had been praying that something would happen that would allow us to enjoy Christmas together. Every year, you had been too tired to do anything but sleep on Christmas. By getting fired, you gave me what I wanted most for Christmas."

Chapter 10: The First of Three Christmas Spirits

     We all need sleep because our bodies need rest, and because our brains need to sort out the experiences that we’d had during the day. Dreams are the results of that sorting-out process. This process works pretty much like a computer searching for the appropriate file for the data that is fed into it. When something really strange happens in a dream, it’s often because the mind temporarily has placed it into the wrong “file” and then has attempted once again to put it into the correct one.

     The reader may draw his on interpretations of the events taking place in the next few chapters of this small book. Though Ebenezer Christian may or may not have been dreaming, “dreaming” is probably as useful a term here as any.

     When the Christian family went to bed in their spacious home on Elm Street that Christmas Eve night, Ebenezer lay awake for more than an hour pondering the events of the day. There was no one thought that occupied his attention, nor even one thought at a time. The whole of his thoughts (if, indeed, they could have been called thoughts) was jumble of impressions and feelings that left him uneasy.

     Shortly after the grandfather's clock in the hallway chimed the half hour before midnight, Ebenezer Christian drifted off into a fitful sleep. Upon the first chimes of midnight, he awoke and sat up in bed.

     "Are you having trouble sleeping, Ebenezer Christian?" an otherworldly voice asked him.

     "Who are you? Where are you?"

     "My name does not matter, and I stand before you."

     Ebenezer Christian peered into the darkness and saw a wizened, diminutive form he was sure he recognized. "Cooper Grady! What are you doing in my house?"

     "I came to show you your future."

    "And I'm going to show you the door! Wait a minute! This can't be for real. Am I having a nightmare?"

     "There's one way to tell. Anytime you tell yourself that you're dreaming, that's when you start to wake up—that is, if it really is a dream." The spirit paused a moment. Neither it nor Ebenezer Christian spoke. Then the spirit broke the silence: "Have I gone away yet?"

     "No."

     "Neither have you. We must not be dreaming. Are you ready to take a look at your future?"

     "Not even the angels in heaven know the future. Only the Lord knows what the future holds."

     "What if I told you that this one's a no-brainer?"

     "What do you mean?"

     "I mean, what if I told you that I won't show you anything that you don't already know?"

     "Then, I'd say you were wasting your time and mine. Let me go back to sleep, and you can go back to where you came from."

     "Very well, if you don’t want to leave your comfortable bed, I can show you your future from here." With that, the spirit turned and waved its hand as though sweeping away a portion of the air in front of them. In the space where the spirit had waved, Ebenezer Christian saw himself as an elderly man lying in a hospital bed.

     “I suppose that’s me on my deathbed?”

     “Correct grammar would be: ‘I suppose that is I on my deathbed,’ but you are correct about what you’re watching.”

     “I don’t intend to sound cavalier about my own death, but isn’t all this obvious? I know I’m going to die someday, and I expect and hope that I’ll live to a ripe old age and die in a nice, clean hospital bed with my family around me. So, what is all this supposed to tell me?”

     “Nothing can be as deceptive as the obvious. Don’t overlook the obvious. Keep watching-and listen to what you say from your bed.”

     Ebenezer Christian listened for as long as his patience held out-perhaps fifteen minutes-and blurted, “Okay! I’m an ordinary guy with an ordinary family. I live to the age of 79 and die an ordinary death. What is all this supposed to show me?”

     “A moment ago, you told your wife and children that you wish that you’d spent more time with your family, especially while your children were in their teens and early college years. Your wife then expressed the same regret.”

     “But isn’t that what everybody says on his deathbed?”

     “Yes, it is. Nobody on his deathbed ever has said that he wished he’d spent more time at the office or even in church-related activities (except maybe worship services). Nobody on his deathbed ever has said he wished he’d spent more time away from his family.”

     That remark was not in any way comparable to the light that Saul saw on the road to Damascus. It was more of a morsel for thought. Ebenezer Christian had a small counter-argument: “Surely, you’re not saying that we should avoid church activities. Isn’t our highest duty to God?”

     “Yes, it is; and, under God, your service to the family is a more lofty responsibility than your service to the church.” Ebenezer Christian was stunned at such heretical-sounding a doctrine as this. The spirit continued, “Most church work is just busy work, designed to make church members feel as if they’re serving God, regardless of whether they really are. I would remind you that Saint Paul admonished Timothy, ‘If a person does not care for his own, especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.’”

     “Now, don’t tell me that I haven’t been caring for my own household!” Ebenezer Christian had become so excited in his response that he had to look at Mary Martha Christian to be sure he hadn’t awakened her. She was still asleep. He rattled off all the extra work he had done and enumerated money he had given to the church and things he’d bought his family that had been the fruits of his labor.

     “Yes, because of your extra work and overtime, you’ve been able to contribute about twice as much to the church than you ordinarily would have. You’ve gone above and beyond your tithe. I still accuse you of withholding from God what is his due.”

     “What!”

     “The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The precious metals and gemstones within a thousand hills also are His. Do you really think that God is so hard up for money that you must work extra jobs and overtime to support Him? If He did need money, why should he apply to you for it?

     “God’s commandment to tithe isn’t because He needs the money. We must tithe because it’s to our own spiritual benefit to do this. It’s one of the many ways we can follow the commandment to make of ourselves a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God.

     “That’s the sacrifice God wants from you. There’s only one thing you can give Him that isn’t already His: your love: yourself—and that’s the one thing you’ve denied Him. You’ve given your local church organization your service and your money, but you have withheld yourself from God as the one sacrifice He requires.”

     “That’s harsh!” Ebenezer Christian protested, refusing to accept the shade’s judgment.

     “It gets harsher,” the spirit replied. He waved his arm in such a sweeping gesture that it erased every image from the room. Upon his invitation, Ebenezer Christian stepped from the bed; then the bed itself vanished.

     “Where are we,” asked Ebenezer Christian, “and why is all this trash here?” Indeed, they stood on a mountain of tightly compacted refuse.

     “This is the graveyard of most of the Christmas presents you’ve bought your friends and family members. A moment ago, you saw yourself on your deathbed, regretting that you didn’t spend enough time with your family and friends. And why didn’t you? You were too busy making money to buy extra cars, a larger house, and expensive gifts with which to shower your family and friends.

     “Where did they all go: all those cars and all those other embellishments? Most of them are crushed, broken and compacted into cubes beneath our feet. Even your house was torn down, and the rubble was dumped onto a landfill.

     “You desire more than you should have. Because of your inordinate desire, you have inordinate ambition. To satisfy that ambition, you keep away from your family when you should be at home with them; and, by demanding more and more things, you ravage the environment the Lord has created and entrusted unto you for wise stewardship.

     “Just telling you to reduce your desires is not enough now. You’ve become so addicted to materialism that you don’t know how.”

     Ebenezer Christian still did not fully accept the shade’s lecture, but he didn’t want to be left out of the conversation. “How does a person do that?” he asked, as though the person in question were not himself.

    “You can value things by their nature and practical function rather than by their embellishments. Silk, for example, is nothing more than the unraveled cocoon of a worm that feeds on mulberry leaves; and cotton is the untangled fiber of a cotton plant that has gone to seed. Either may be made into a shirt, the function of which is to shade us from the sun or help to warm us on cool days. There is no practical reason for buying a silk shirt rather than a cotton shirt, or one with a famous logo on it rather than one without a logo. Only vain imaginings can lead people to be deceived by these needless embellishments.”

     “A shirt is only a small thing,” Ebenezer Christian excused.

     “Little things add up, but since you brought it up, does your family need one car for each family member?” Before Ebenezer Christian could answer, the shade asked, “Does your family need even one car for the whole family?”

     “Of course we do!” Ebenezer Christian exclaimed with the confidence of a man who is about to get the better of an accuser who thus far has been successfully badgering him. “It’s much faster and more convenient than taking a bus or walking. Or do you have something against saving time?”

     “Saving time for the purpose of filling your hours with more busy work?” the spirit asked rhetorically. “Well, I won’t go into that-not now, at any rate. Are you quite sure that driving saves time?”

     “Of course! How can I not be sure if I’m saving time?”

     “You’re counting your time in terms of how long it takes to get from point A to point B. If you counted your time the way a businessman counts his expenses, you may be surprised to learn that it takes less time to take a bus, or even to walk, than it takes to drive to work.”

     “How’s that?”

     “A businessman would count everything that goes into the enterprise he’s examining. It takes you a certain number of hours to earn the money to pay for the car, the insurance, gas, oil, other fluids, car wash, garage, and the property taxes on the car and garage. You probably have other car-related expenses, but we’ll stop there. Once you’ve estimated the hours you worked to buy and maintain the car, you divide that figure by the number of miles you’ve driven. Add to it the time you spend finding a parking space and the time you spend going from point A to point B. Only then will you know whether it saves you time to walk, take a bus or drive. For most people, a car is no more than an embellishment; it’s not even a luxury.

     While Ebenezer Christian was absorbing this thought, the spirit eyed him in silence. After a moment, the shade interrupted his thoughts to remark, “Oh, by the way: you’re standing on your BMW.”

     Ebenezer Christian looked beneath his feet and saw a block of compacted steel. He looked up again and found himself standing in the room of a college dormitory. Sitting at a desk, with her back to them, was a young woman weeping over her books.

     "Who is she?" Ebenezer Christian asked.

     "Her name is Teng Hui-mei," the shade replied. Her father is originally from the Henan Province of China, but her family now lives in Taiwan. She's a classmate of your daughter Buffy. In fact, this lady’s room is next to your daughter’s”

     "Why is she crying?"

     "She's under tremendous pressure. Due to a lack of resources, she began college several years later than most students. Now, almost ten years after her graduation from college in Taiwan, she’s a thirty-five year old graduate student. Most students from Taiwan first become undergraduates, partly to accustom themselves to the language. Her age and lack of resources led her to go directly into graduate school. Now she's suffering for it. Most weeknights, she gets barely five hours of sleep because she studies all the time."

     "What will become of her?"

     "I can tell you only what I'm allowed to know myself. If she succeeds and is graduated from this school, she'll become a teaching missionary in the Henan Province. Officially, she'll be no more than a teacher, since Christian missionaries aren't allowed. She is to establish a cell church in that province. After a few years, the officials will raid the church, arrest the members and scatter them throughout Henan Province and beyond. As a result, the seeds of the Gospel will be scattered all over the area."

     "My daughter Buffy—“

     "Your daughter Buffy will never become a missionary to China. She'll marry a minister and do fine work here in the United States."

     "But she always said she felt a burden to minister to the Chinese."

     "And that's the Lord's will for her life. The lady you see before you is the Chinese to whom she must minister. There's no feeling of nobility in helping a classmate with her homework, but the need is real nonetheless. Oh, your daughter isn't exactly wasting her free time. She is active in a Christian organization, and it gives her a feeling of satisfaction that she's doing `the Lord's work,' so to speak. But filling the needs of others is far more important than giving herself a feeling of satisfaction while she's having fun.

     "Your daughter is throwing away the only chance she'll ever have to minister to the Chinese and—however indirectly—spread the Gospel in China."

     "Is it possible that—what did you say her name is? Teng Hui-mei? "

     "Yes, that's her name."

     "Is it possible that she'll flunk out of graduate school?"

     "Yes, it is."

     "What will happen to her ministry then?"

     "If she flunks out of graduate school, the good work I've described will never happen. Each of us influences others in ways that we can never know."

     "Will she flunk?"

     "I'm not allowed to know that," the shade replied in the voice of a middle-aged man.

The shade no longer had the face and bearing of Cooper Grady. He now resembled the member of the group of fanatics called Patriot’s Dream.