by John Mancini
Chapter 6 -- AN AMAZING DEVELOPMENT
Everybody at the party had promised not to tell anybody about Will’s comment about his "magic glasses." They all just figured it was a crazy thing that he said before he got sick all over the place. Will was worried that people would think he was some kind of a crazy kid if he thought he had "magic glasses." Maybe they would even make him go down and talk to the counselor.
Oh brother, that’s the last thing I need.
And the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like maybe nothing strange had happened at the basketball game anyway. I mean, it wasn’t like some great miracle or anything. It wasn’t like the Red Sea parted or a dead guy got up and walked away or anything. People predicted scores of basketball and football games all the time. Maybe he was just lucky. It hadn’t happened before or since. It was crazy to think that the glasses had anything to do with it. Enough with the magic glasses already.
Once Will realized this, it was actually kind of a relief. The past few weeks he always thought something unusual would happen again with his glasses. So he always tried to wear them or have them with him. His Mom and Dad were actually amazed.
"William seems to be showing much more responsibility for his glasses," his Dad had said at dinner. "It seems like he’s always wearing them now." Mom agreed.
But Will figured it was about time to go back to normal. Magic glasses. What a crazy idea. I must have been out of my mind.
It was much easier back when he didn’t even worry about wearing the glasses. No strain. He decided to go back to the days when sometimes his glasses might turn up in his backpack, maybe on the floor, maybe in his jacket, maybe even over at the Chevaliers. No strain. And even better, nobody at school had said anything about the whole glasses episode. Everyone had forgotten. Nobody made fun of him and thought he was a nut.
On top of all this, earlier in the day - Christmas Eve - they got presents in the mail from his Aunts and Uncles. But instead of shirts or pajamas or pants, the present turned out to be a check. A check for $50 - to buy whatever he wanted for Christmas. $50. Will got his Mom to cash the check that day, and got his Mom to get the bank to give him a $50 bill. Will had never had a $50 bill before. To make things even better, it was one of those new ones, with all the secret things on it to keep counterfeiters from making more.
On the day after Christmas, Will was going to go to Best Buy and get the Worldwide Wrestling Federation game for the Nintendo. All of a sudden, out of the blue, the $50 he needed to buy the WWF game had appeared. And who said miracles didn’t happen on Christmas, thought Will. Will patted his pocket where the magical $50 bill was safe in hiding. Yes, life was good. No worries about glasses. No worries about kids making fun of him. Tomorrow, presents galore from Santa and his parents. And now, financial security. At least until he bought the Worldwide Wrestling Federation game.
Will was on top of the world as he went into the church. Not even seeing Smalls could burst his bubble. As usual, Smalls was lurking in the shadows for some poor kid to pick on. Oh well, thought Will. I don’t care. Let him dish out whatever he wants. Tonight is Christmas Eve.
Will walked by the people who had the big red "GREETER" badges on who said hello to everyone as they came in. They had to say "hello" to every one. That was their job, to say hello to people whether they liked them or not. Will thought he would to take a page out of their book as he walked by the dreaded Smalls.
"Hello Smalls," said Will as he walked by.
Smalls seemed taken aback for a split second, but recovered his core nastiness quickly. "Hey Willameena. Come over here a second."
Will dutifully obeyed. "What do you want, Smalls?"
"I just want you to know that I know about your magic glasses. And I haven’t figured out how I will use the information, but mark my words, I will. Somewhere, sometime, when you least expect it, I’ll get you. And you’ll be the laughing stock of the school."
Will staggered back and felt like he had been hit in the stomach. The bubble was burst. One thing that bugged Will a lot was when people made fun of him. And now he had Smalls to worry about for the entire vacation. He wandered into the church and sat down with the rest of his family in the pew.
Will thought, Why does a kid like that even bother to come to church? He doesn’t have any friends. He’s just a big loser. Why is he so mad? Nobody likes him. I hate that guy. He’s not going to get me. I’m going to get him first. Before I leave this service, I’m going to think of a way to make things completely different between me and Smalls. This time, I’m going to strike first.
"Will, are you all right?" his Dad whispered. "You seem like you’re mad. It’s Christmas Eve. Enjoy the service. Relax."
"OK," said Will, but his mind was still churning.
The service started off with a Christmas Pageant. The way they did the Christmas pageant at William’s church was that anybody could come as anybody in the Christmas story. Then at different points in the pageant, all the Mary’s came up and all the Joseph’s and all the angels and all the shepherds, until just about every kid was up in the front.
They started out by singing "Away in a Manger." Will hoped that someday, somebody would figure out what was the right note on which to start "Away in a Manger." Sometimes they started it so high that no one could actually hear the notes, and you could hear dogs howling all around the neighborhood of the church. On the other hand, if you started it too low, by the time you got down to "The Little Lord Jesus Lay Down His Sweet Head," you were down to notes so low that it sounded like a lot of people groaning. While they were singing, all of the Mary’s and Joseph’s were supposed to go up to the front. Erin had brought a blue towel with her just for the occasion, and now she put it over her head. She went up to the front clutching Kate the Bitty Baby, who was also wrapped in a matching blue towel. Will imagined an announcer like in one of those Broadway plays saying, Tonight, the part of the Baby Jesus will be played by Kate the Bitty Baby.
Before William knew it there were 16 Mary’s, all holding dolls and looking proud and confident, accompanied by 12 Josephs’s, looking like they had no idea where they were or why they were there.
The next song was "First Noel," which was the cue for the animals and shepherds to go forward. There were six kids dressed as lambs. The Thompson Twins came forward dressed as a camel - with two humps. Two kids had horse heads on. There was even one lion. Will was not sure where a lion would have come from in Bethlehem, but he figured the whole thing was none of his business. Maybe it has something to do with that lions lying down with lambs business the minister talks about sometimes. The kid probably doesn’t want to be a lion anyway, only his mother had made him because she thought it would look cute.
Most of the shepherds had bathrobe costumes, where they wore their bathrobes, and then put a towel on their head and wrapped a rope around the towel. They all look like that guy Yassir Arafat on TV. One kid had on an old Ninja Turtle bathrobe. Fabulous outfit, thought Will.
After the parade of animals and shepherds, the congregation sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" and all the kids who dressed as angels - mostly girls - came up. One kid poked a lamb in the eye with his angel wing, and a small scuffle broke out. But peace was restored quickly.
Finally, the organ lady started to play "We Three Kings of Orient Are" and a bunch of kids wearing Burger King crowns came forward. They were all car-rying jars that looked like perfume containers, except for one kid who looked like he had a coffee can wrapped up in Santa Claus paper. Will always liked the "We Three Kings" song because of the words that his Dad had taught him that they used to sing when they were little… "Trying to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded and exploded…" The song ended and everyone clapped.
"Thank you, boys and girls," said the minister. You can now go back to your seats. There was a flurry of activity as the Mary’s, Joseph’s, animals, shepherds, angels, and wise men all tried to figure out where there seats were. Eventually, things calme
d down.
"Tonight’s reading is from the second chapter of Luke," the minister began. "The passage recounts the familiar Christmas story."
"There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, but the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David’s town your Savior was born - Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
"Suddenly a great army of heaven’s angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased.’
"When the angels went away from them back into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us.’
"So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and saw the baby lying in the manger. When the shepherds saw him, they told them what the angel had said about the child. And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said."
The minister paused before beginning the sermon. Will squirmed a bit and looked over at his Mom. She was mouthing a word, but not saying it because she didn’t want to make a noise. After she did it four times, Will realized that she was saying "glasses." OK, OK. As if I don’t have enough to worry about with Smalls. I’ll put the glasses on.
Will got as far as pulling the glasses out of his pocket, but then he was distracted because the minister was talking again.
"And all who heard it were amazed," he repeated.
"We’ve all heard the Christmas story so many times that sometimes I worry that we’ve lost the ability to be amazed. ‘And all who heard it were amazed,’ Luke tells us.
"It’s hard to be amazed these days. Incredible technological things that used to amaze us - computers and computer games - have become commonplace. It wasn’t so long ago that we were all amazed by color televisions. And the idea that you could watch movies in your own house, anytime you wanted, why that was an amazing idea. The idea that you could walk around with a little box and get phone calls - no matter where you were - was an amazing idea."
The minister pulled a Christmas card out of his pocket, opened it, and it began playing Jingle Bells. "I’m told that there is more computing power in this one Christmas card than existed in the entire world 50 years ago. And yet I don’t think we find this card ‘amazing’ any more. Maybe mildly interesting. Maybe mildly humorous. But certainly not ‘amazing.’"
"So in a world in which the amazing has become commonplace - and is even taken for granted - how do we continue to be amazed? We are confronted every day with things that used to be incredible - and we yawn. How are we to continue to be amazed when the Christmas season seems like it is shoved down our throat beginning at Halloween and when things seem to get more and more hectic each year? How are we to be amazed when we see countless examples, all around us and amplified by the media, of people doing awful things to each other and to themselves?" He paused for a drink of water.
Amen, brother, thought William, thinking about Smalls.
"’And all who heard it were amazed.’ How on earth can we be ‘amazed’ by the story of the birth of a baby more than 2000 years ago? I think the key to restoring our sense of amazement begins with this simple story of Christmas. A few weeks ago, at the beginning of Advent, we read from Corinthians. We read, ‘Now all I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now.’ None of can see each other very clearly. Or see ourselves clearly. We certainly don’t understand God very clearly. Everything is kind of murky, like looking into a very dim mirror. Or like a person with poor eyesight trying to see without glasses. We look hard. We squint our eyes. We try to see. But we can’t see clearly.
"And that’s what Christmas is like. It’s like a picture that we can’t quite get in focus. It bounces around among all the conflicting messages we see and hear. Things get blurry as we become convinced that we need more and more and more stuff.
"But every once in a while, we get quick glimpses of the miracle of Christmas and the promise of the manger. Unexpected kindnesses that people show us. We see people with fatal diseases or crippling handicaps tapping into stores of courage that they never knew they had. If we take the time, we get quick glimpses into what people are really like. And in those fleeting moments, we get an idea of what it would be like to see if things weren’t so blurry and so hazy. We can see how our lives and those of others have meaning. And we are amazed."
Will looked down at the glasses in his hand and slowly put them on. The minister repeated, "And we are ama…"
Suddenly, everything looked like it was again in some kind of super-sharp focus. Everything came to a stop. The voice of the minister faded away. The colors were so bright that he thought they would explode. Then just as suddenly, everything faded into the background until the only one thing was in focus.
Smalls.
Will stared at Smalls and tried to focus. He saw Smalls waiting in a long line with a bunch of other people, and they seemed to be in a church, not Trinity but some other church. There were lots of tables set up, with food packed high on them. There must have been a thousand cans of tuna fish on one table. There were aisles between the tables, and people were going up and down the aisles with wagons.
Sally and Mrs. Smalls and Smalls himself were going up and down the aisles with a wagon. Mrs. Smalls picked up a couple of cans of tuna from one table, and then some Hamburger Helper from another table. Back and forth they went, with Mrs. Smalls and Sally loading food into the wagon and Smalls just looking down and shuffling along.
When the wagon was mostly filled, they went into another room with lots and lots of bread and rolls and pies and cakes. The lady behind the table said, "You can take one of each. Merry Christmas." A kid came from the back of the church with a big garbage bag that looked like it had presents in it. He said, "162." That was the number on the side of the boxes in the wagon. "6 year old girl and 11 year old boy." Mrs. Smalls said "Thank You" and "Merry Christmas" and loaded the bag into the wagon.
Will watched closely as they walked out the door, Sally and Mrs. Smalls pulling the wagon and Smalls shuffling behind. He looked like a far different character than the big jerk who tormented Will at school. He looked up in William’s direction and William was amazed to see the look on his face. Smalls looked terrified.
"…zed," the minister continued. "Merry Christmas."
As the ushers came forward to take the collection plate, William sat there, stunned. He thought about all the gifts that he would receive over the next few days. He thought about all of the food that there would be, even though he personally didn’t think he would eat much of it. He thought about the grandparents and cousins and all the friends he would see over the holidays. He thought about how mean and nasty Smalls was and thought about why he was the way he was. And he thought about whether there was anything that he could do about it.
Will reached into the "friendship" folder that usually had an attendance roster, name badges and some offering envelopes in it. While everybody else was looking at the bells playing, Will took out one of the envelopes. He quickly reached into his pocket, pulled out the fifty and shoved it in the envelope. He wrote on the envelope, "For Wally Smalls, Merry Christmas from a friend." When the collection plate came by, Will put the envelope, face down, in the collection plate.
"What did you put in there, William?" William was known for filling out the cards "Desires a call from minister," with fake names and his phone number and putting those in the collection plate and then seeing if anybody called later in the week.
"Just my pledge envelope Mom."
Mom looked at William closely, expe
cting that something else was up. But she said nothing.
William never told anyone what he did that night or what he had seen with his glasses. And he never again saw anything other than what he was supposed to see with his glasses. Over the years, Smalls continued to be in his classes from time to time. And he continued to be a pain. But William thought he could see a change - a tiny one, he had to admit - in Smalls. A little bit less of an edge. And he thought he saw a little bit of humanity creep in from time to time.
But William never forgot what he had seen in church that Christmas Eve, how clear it was and how different Smalls looked from what he expected, trailing behind the wagon and shuffling his feet, and the look of terror that was in his face for those few seconds. He thought about how astonishing it was that he had just handed over the fifty, without thinking twice. He thought about the simple and strange story of some shepherds and some animals and a baby in a manger.
And he was amazed.
