A Christmas Story

[Wellington]

I received this wonderful story yesterday
It needs a wider audience
Please read it and think---.Wellington

A Bangkok Christmas Lullaby 2006



The cook found them before dawn at the entrance of our Mercy Centre, when you could still see the stars: six-year-old Miss Fon and her mom and our ferocious, slum-born, street-wise guard dog curled up asleep together. The ferocious, etc. dog, by the way, has been trained to welcome all strangers.



Miss Fon became our Christmas present, coming to stay with us for a while to share her wisdom and joy - her dance, her song, her innocence. And she led us as we followed the Magi and the Christmas star.



Miss Fon is a special little girl who at six is still learning to walk and talk, and she knows how to dance and sing. Something went terribly wrong when she was born. Baby Fon didn't get enough oxygen. So in a rented room, with dad sick and mom working, there was really no social contact. She walks at her own pace and mostly without help, and her dancing is graceful but slow, as she is careful not to fall down. She’s still not too good at talking but sing, she does, so quietly – in a croon – without words.



She usually walks with Miss Dao, glorious Miss Dao, who at three-and-one-half years of age, decided to be Miss Fon's "older" sister. It was Miss Dao who took her hand and led her around everywhere. And it was Miss Dao who taught her how to sing.



I write you this Christmas of our sacred stories and legends, of wise men - astrologers, scientific intellectuals, really – who probably had read the Hebrew scriptures and with prophetic wisdom, followed the star shining in the East, leading to Bethlehem.



Angels were in the high heaven singing, telling the shepherd families, who probably had also seen and were mystified by the Star, of a child to be born on this day. They were told to go to Bethlehem, over the hills, not far, where they found the child lying in a manger near an inn.



I think about Joseph and Mary standing in line, travel-weary, stamping their feet and trying to keep warm. They traveled by foot and donkey some 80 kilometers from Nazareth, forced to come for a government census. The innkeeper, perhaps a kindly man, looked at them dressed like vagabonds, talking like people from the north – Galilee - and told them he was truly sorry, that the inn was full. There was no room.



Then a kindly voice - perhaps the innkeeper himself, perhaps an angel, seeing their plight and pregnant Mary - mentioned the stable near the inn where they kept the animals.



Out of desperation to get anywhere out of the cold, they made it to the stable.



And maybe it was also that way with Miss Fon and her mom. Maybe there was a kindly voice saying, “There's a place in the Klong Toey slums where you can go. A woman and her small daughter would be safe there.”



Her mom begged our cook that pre-dawn morning, would she look after Miss Fon, her precious and only daughter, just for a while so she could deal with some issues? She said she would come back, and in tears, disappeared into the darkness. The cook had to persuade Fon with cookies to come inside.



A couple of days later, we discovered she couldn't hear. A bit of warm olive oil soon solved that problem; and we made sure the first sound she heard was a tiny silver bell, like the angels singing in high heaven. (We wanted her first sounds to be beautiful.) Hearing that tiny bell ring, that was her first smile.



The second big smile came with an ice cream cone. She was afraid of it at first. Ice cream cones are cold to the touch and look scary. So Miss Dao, who knows lots about ice cream cones, licked her own cone first, showing Fon that it was okay; and that second smile came with her first taste. Wow!



Miss Dao showed her the Christmas crib here at Mercy Centre, and immediately Fon laid down and went to sleep. The dog came and curled up beside her. They slept, they dreamt together.



And two thousand years before that, Joseph had a dream: to take the child and his mother Mary and run away! Run now, in the middle of the night! They’re coming to kill your child. Maybe both of you, too.



We learned later when Fon’s mom came back that her mom had been forced to run, too. Not from the law, but from some Slimy Slipperies who wanted Fon's mom to do some bad stuff that you don’t even want to think about. Force her to triple pay back some loans, money she’d borrowed when her husband was dying of an unpopular disease. She was so poor when he died, the friendly Buddhist Abbot took money from the donation box for the destitute and gave it to her, so that merit could be made, and the monks could chant the holy Sutras.



Let us look for the star. Let us try to understand and not be afraid of the heavens and cosmic events. Let us journey to Bethlehem. And if on our journey, we should meet Miss Fon and her mom sleeping on the pavement, before dawn when you can still see the stars - sleeping all curled up together with that ferocious, slum-born guard dog who welcomes strangers - do stop and invite them in. Maybe offer them some cookies.



And finally, thank you for being part of our family here at Mercy Centre. Thank you for joining in our Partnership with the Poor.



Christmas Blessings from all of us at Mercy Centre, our staff and children.





Fr. Joe Maier C.Ss.R.







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