Savior of the World

I just walked in the door from attending the play "Savior of the World" done at Christmas time at the conference center. The play is divided into two distinct acts, one about the birth of Jesus, and the second about His resurrection. This makes it possible for the play to be performed at Christmas or Easter. Mary and Joseph carry the majority of the first act, and the second is transferred to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, and other witnesses.

I have fond memories of this play, especially of the music. As far as I can remember, this was my first time seeing the play, but I have had a copy of the soundtrack for a while, and there have been times when I have listened to it very often. The music is gorgeous. Some of the music has changed now from the recording that I have. It looks like the script has been revised as the years go on.

One feeling that I recall when I think about Christmas is warmth, probably literal and just a feeling. In California it was really the only time we ever turned the heater on in the house, so I learned to associate the sound of the air coming through the heater vents with the December month leading up to Christmas.

Just as distinct is a memory I have of an apartment I lived in as a missionary. It was a few stories up in a tall building. I lived there during my first Christmas as a missionary. My sister was living in Boston at the time. It was close to Connecticut in the sense that we shared the same weather patterns, and the drive on the freeway was direct and fast. It also felt far like it were across an ocean, my little industrial city southwest of Cambridge. We spent our days so differently, enjoying our east-coast home in such different ways.

One night after we were asleep the buzzer rang from downstairs. I realized when I heard the voice that it was she, and we ran downstairs. She had gone, but left enough Christmas treats to fill the entryway floor. A roast, fresh fruit, trader joes knickknacks, other stuff we hadn't stumbled upon in the previous several months.

We put up a Christmas tree and lights in the apartment. It was heated well, and we came home so tired and cold that I don't remember whether the extreme comfort we felt in our beds was a false reality to us or not. It was a very real Christmas, though. We brought food and gifts around to the families whom we loved and who loved us, and had far less resource than we did even as missionaries. Christmas Eve we drove several miles north to spend the afternoon with a man who was dying for some company and had ordered pizza in preparation for our arrival. He was equally excited to show us his keepsakes from the marines and the several Christmas decorations he had put up.

The next Christmas I was in a city far different than the first, this one wealthy and well-adorned, the type of place where you knew it was winter because the polo field was covered with snow. Here Christmas was purchased, and pretty effectively too. There were enough perfect pine trees with snow and lights to make the most anti-commercial Christmas lover feel a little bit of joy. The city was old and gorgeous, and the roads curved through patches of dark forests to open up to a fancy set of houses, a little village of high-end shops, or a preserved natural area. This time I don't remember it being warm in our apartment. We created warmth here, turned the heater full blast when we got in the car, studied underneath the heating vent, drank hot chocolate, and slept underneath many piled layers. Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner with a jolly Jewish family that had become Mormon. Christmas morning we ate breakfast at the McDonald's in the next city over.

It was warm on New Years Eve, when we spoiled ourselves putting on the ESPN sweatshirts a neighbor had given us for Christmas to bring treats to our Mission President's house, to play dominoes with them until the clock reached midnight. Our car was actually a truck, and we would drive home in the dark and the snow on a night like this one feeling safe and calm. I thought about my life and myself in the third person, though.

This Christmas has been cold so far. Nearly all I've thought about is how I can effectively zip my down coat more completely around my face as I hurry and complain between classes and the apartment. I don't know if the missing ingredient is literal warmth, or the warmth that emanates from a giving heart. Do I miss the rush or calming air when I return home at Christmas time, or the stirring comfort that someone has been thinking of me and prepared a warm home, and as it was as a missionary, being sure that other people knew I was thinking about them?

It's 12:15am. Outside the gentle neighbor to our north in the apartment complex is shoveling the walks. He and his wife brought home their first child just a few weeks ago. I'm sure it's warm in their apartment.