'Twas the night before Christmas Eve, and all through the activity center, hardly a creature was stirring—just an occasional homeless man shuffling to the bathroom or slipping outside for a midnight smoke. I would settle down for a long nap, but I'm a very light sleeper. Unfamiliar noises will disturb my shallow sleep. And well before dawn there will arise such a clatter in the kitchen when Santa arrives (everyone in our church knows Santa), that I'll be wide awake in spite of myself.
So this seems a good time to sit quietly and reflect on the evening just past, and the evening to come, and the evening that inspired these evenings.
Tonight was the annual Christmas party for the guests in our Room In The Inn ministry. Each Tuesday evening through the winter, 24 homeless men come to spend the night in our church's gym. They receive a hot meal, a hot shower, clean clothing, and a safe and friendly place to spend the night before returning downtown. It's part of an interdenominational effort in our city to provide shelter from the winter nights.
A fried chicken dinner was served by a busy team of friendly elves (well, friendly church members). In addition to the usual clothing distributed in our benevolence center, Santa brought each man a brand new winter coat and a small gift bag with gloves and socks and the like (he wasn't wearing his outfit, but I could imagine him doing what he did in a red suit).
At dinner I chatted with L.W. and James, mostly about where they grew up and how they came to our city (but inside, I was mostly curious about the causes of the limps and scars which were painfully obvious). In the background was a television showing a Christmas special. One of the guys asked who the singer was (it was Faith Hill) and said he really liked the song (it was "A Baby Changes Everything"). I wondered why he liked it. Was it the beautiful singing? Or had the baby changed something in his life? Or was he drawn to the hope that it might?
After supper, I swapped jokes with Howard and Willie. I learned that some 25 years ago Willie used to be the custodian at our church. Now he has no job, no home, and no family except for an 88-year-old aunt. Everyone here has a story, but I think Willie's will bother me for awhile. Twenty-five years ago he was cleaning our church . . . now he's sleeping in it.
Patrick came to me privately with a 5 dollar bill in his hand and said he wanted to pay his tithes. I told him to keep it, but he insisted that God had given it to him and he was going to pay his tithes. If I didn't take it, he would find a church that would. So I thanked him and passed his offering on to those who will use it for other guests in the inn. And it occurred to me that he gave more than any of us had given last Sunday, who "contributed out of our abundance."
Later Cole and Joe taught me how to play a game of dominoes (or more accurately, "taught me how to lose a game of dominoes"). We laughed a lot. They got a kick out of trash talking with the pastor.
I found myself wondering where they would play tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night I will spend Christmas Eve with my family—with my wife, with my daughter and her new husband, with my son who just flew in yesterday from Texas, with my parents, with my mother-in-law, with my brother and his family who will arrive tomorrow from Texas, and with my other brother and his family who are driving in from Illinois where they narrowly escaped a blizzard (he is gladly leaving behind a white Christmas for a tender Tennessee Christmas!). We will eat too much in anticipation of eating even more on Christmas Day. We will open a few gifts in anticipation of opening even more on Christmas Day. We will attend a Christmas Eve service with many other faithful who have come to adore him. And like them all, we will leave the warm glow of the candlelight to nestle snug in our beds for the silent night.
That's where I'll be tomorrow night.
I don't know where L.W. and James and Howard and Willie and Patrick and Cole and Joe will spend Christmas Eve.
On the holy night, when the children fall asleep to visions of sugar plums, I think I may find I'm still wondering about Willie.
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