When I was about thirteen or fourteen I wrote a short story about a young shepherd boy who was one of the first people to see the newborn Jesus. It is titled "The King of Kings." I was very proud of it at the time. Now, years later when I read it, I smiled to myself. My descriptions of the angels and of the Holy Family are very simple and rather amusing: the angel that appears to the shepherds is "very beautiful and shiny," and I described Jesus as a baby with "a heavenly light about him and a sweet smile on his face." Perhaps this is not bad for a thirteen-year-old, but I would never write like that now. As I read the story, I realized some parts of it had promise, so I thought perhaps I would rewrite it.
I often get inspiration from the oddest things. Sometimes it is not too odd: a look someone gives someone else, a passage in a book, a scene in a movie, a dream I have. But sometimes it really is odd. For example, a few weeks ago I had inspiration for this revision of "The King of Kings." The boys I nanny were watching an animated cartoon called "The First Noel." It's rather goofy, but as soon as it came to the scene where the three kings visit Jesus I was struck with the wonder of it. Perhaps it was because I was seeing from the eyes of a child in a way. I really do not know, but I did know I had to work this wonder into a story.
These past few weeks as Christmas approached, I thought a lot, and still do, on the wonder of Christmas. Now that I am older, Christmas has more meaning to me than presents and pretty decorations. Most of all I have been dwelling on the fact that Christmas is about love. I ponder the love of Christ made man for love of us. The our God should become a helpless baby to free us from the shadow and darkness of death is a truly wonderful thing. I ponder the love of the Virgin Mary that she said yes to becoming God's mother. I ponder the love of Joseph, who accepted Jesus as his foster son and accepted the strangeness of his conception. That to me is sheer love. Saint Joseph is a man truly to be emulated. I can only hope that if I marry it will be to a man who has that much love, and that he will be a father to my children as Joseph was a father to Jesus. That is the most beautiful aspect of him in my opinion: that he was an unconditionally loving father to Jesus and an unconditionally loving husband to Mary.
The love of Christmas is beautiful. It is joyful. It is humbling. I wanted to put all of these things into a story, and so I have done my best. I cannot say if I have truly done my thoughts and the beauty and joy of Christ's birth justice, but I hope I have come near. I hope you enjoy this story, and that you have a blessed Christmas filled with love and peace and joy.
The World Undone
By Clotilde Zehnder
It was one of those wonderfully yet savagely clear nights in midwinter,
back when I was a boy of ten years. It was a night when the air hangs thick and
cold and the sky is pitch black, broken only by the tiny pin-pricks of stars
dotting its surface. It was my turn to guard the sheep for two hours. I was the
youngest, so I got the shortest shift, but it was still long to me. I huddled
in my sheepskin cloak, wrapping it as tightly as I could around me. It was the
coldest night in my memory. I stamped my feet and sang softly to myself. I
liked to make up songs just like my great namesake, King David. I only sang my
songs quietly, when no one was listening. I was afraid my brothers would laugh
at me should they hear my songs.
As I sang I watched the millions of stars in the
pitch-black sky. No matter how many times I tried, I could never count them. I
had a strange need to count them, to know how many there were. There was no
explanation for this desire; I could not explain it even to myself. My brothers
thought it strange. Even my brother Gideon, who understood such things, could
not understand this desire.
My eyes moved from one star to another, then rested
on one that seemed to burn a little brighter than the others. I had seen bright
stars, and knew some burned brighter, but this one had a strange quality to it,
a clear, golden sort of quality. As I watched, the star seemed to grow bigger.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Perhaps I was getting sleepy. But though I rubbed
my eyes hard, the star continued to grow bigger and brighter.
I began to feel frightened. I ran to shake my eldest
brother awake. “Is it my turn already?” Beniah mumbled sleepily.
“Beniah, look!” I urged. My brother heard the fear in
my voice and was instantly awake. “What, is the wolf pack returned?” he asked.
The wolf packs sometimes roamed the hills and wreaked havoc on our flocks.
I shook my head and pointed dumbly at the star.
Beniah took a look at it. “What am I supposed to see, David?” he asked.
I found my tongue enough to stammer, “That star. Is
it not bigger, and brighter, than usual? And it grows bigger.”
Beniah shook his head impatiently. “You woke me to
look at a star? I see nothing strange. You are imagining things again, little
brother. Lie down and sleep; I will take the rest of your watch.”
There was nothing to do but obey. I lay down and
pulled my sheepskin tightly around me. Perhaps my mind had been playing tricks
with me. Already the star seemed smaller and less bright. I closed my eyes and
soon began to feel drowsy.
I do not know how long I slept. Without warning I was
jerked awake by a blinding light and my brothers’ voices crying out in wordless
terror. I sat up, trembling all over. I could hardly see a thing for the light.
It was a light unlike any I had ever seen before. It had an almost translucent
quality and while it was pure white it was also every color that could ever
exist. I thought perhaps I could touch it and let it run through my fingers
like water.
As if in a dream I got up, letting my cloak fall to
the ground behind me, and moved towards the light. No, I moved into the light
and it wrapped around me like the cloak I had just abandoned. As if from a
great distance I saw the huddled, shaking forms of my brothers on the ground.
They were crying out to God to spare them. Their fear was palpable. It was the
fear of the grave.
Yet though I was afraid, my fear propelled me on
until I stood still, blinded and immobilized by the light. My tongue clove to
the roof of my mouth and my feet became heavy as rock. The light’s source was a
fiery shape that I could not quite distinguish. Every time I thought it looked
like something familiar it was unfamiliar without perceptibly changing. It was
frightening, awesome, and glorious.
The fiery figure spoke, but it was not so much speech
as knowledge that filled my mind. My brothers stopped their cries and were
silent to hear the words. The words that filled my mind were not ordinary
words. It was pure beauty, light that had taken verbal form.
“Fear not,” the light said. “Fear not, for behold, I
bring thee good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. To thee this
day a Savior has been born in the city of David your father. It is he of whom
the prophets spoke, a savior who is Christ the Lord. He it is who shalt free
thee from the darkness and the shadow of death. Go and find him, and this shall
be a sign to thee: thou shalt find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and
lying in a manger.”
The voice ceased, but the light grew in brilliance,
and a thousand voices filled the air in song. “Glory to God in the highest!”
the voices sang. It was the sweetest music I had ever heard.
The song faded away after a while, leaving the
piercing black sky and a fragrant silence. We all stayed as we were for a
while, my brothers cowering on the ground, and I standing rooted to the ground.
At last my brothers stirred and I was able to move my limbs again. We looked at
each other in wonder. Had it been only a dream?
Yet the words of the heavenly being – for such we now
knew it to be – rang in our ears: “Go and find him.”
“Shall we search for this child?” my brother Acham
asked.
“We shall,” Beniah agreed. “Come, my brothers; let us
make haste.”
“What is to be done with the sheep?” Gideon asked.
“Perhaps one of us should stay,” Acham suggested,
though not at all in a hopeful way.
Beniah nodded. “That would be wise. We will draw
lots. David must stay as well.”
I protested, and Beniah said, “You are tired, David.”
“Please let me go,” I pleaded. “I am not tired.”
Beniah gave me a long look. “That is not true, David,” he said softly.
I hung my head. “Well, not very tired. Please let me
go, Beniah. I know if have been called to see this king.”
Beniah looked at me again for a long while, then he
said, “Very well. Now who will stay?”
Acham said he would stay. Acham was the silent one
who seldom spoke and preferred his own bit of land to all else. The rest of us
set off towards the east. We had not discussed it, but it seemed only right to
follow the direction of the star. The star appeared again, shining more
brightly than all the others. As we walked towards it, it grew larger, and
somehow we knew we were going in the right direction.
We came at last to a cave a short distance from the
town where we and other shepherds were wont to take shelter on stormy nights.
There we were greeted by a strange sight. The star hung right above the cave in
the clear night as if it had dropped out of the sky to touch it. It illuminated
the cave inside and out in a soft, unearthly light.
We approached the entrance of the cave slowly,
timidly. None of us knew what we would see. What we did see took our breath
away. I could never have been prepared for the sight I saw in that humble,
rough cave that cold midwinter night.
There were
animals sheltering in the cave: a cow, several sheep, and a donkey. All of them
were standing about, watching. I had never seen dumb beasts watch in such a way
before. The expressions on their faces were almost, dare I say, human. They
were looking at three people to one side of the cave: a man, a woman, and a
baby. My eyes took in the man first. He was an older, kindly-looking man,
dressed in the garments of a town-dweller. He looked weary, and his clothes
were stained with the dust of a long journey, yet in his eyes was such pride
and such love. He could only be a father, one who loved his child with
unconditional love. I had never known my father. He stood beside the woman and
the child with a protective and loving air.
My eyes moved to the woman and stayed there for a
long moment. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my short life,
and somehow I knew that I would never again see such a beautiful woman as she. She
was not only physically beautiful. No, she had an air about her of goodness,
and kindness, and perfection. One could almost call it a scent. I was
unaccustomed to such goodness and purity, and it left me breathless. There was
no weariness about her as there would be with a woman who has just given birth.
This woman had a radiance about her, a joy that was palpable, a love that was
tangible. I had never known my mother. I had a strange feeling that this woman
was my mother. She was dressed simply, but she had a queenliness about her that
surpassed her clothing. I had an urge to bow down to her.
But it was the baby, the tiny baby lying in a bed of
hay, that truly caught my gaze. I could not tear my eyes away from that baby.
He was wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes like any other baby, and all I
could see was his little face framed by a fluff of dark hair. This baby was not
red and wrinkled like other new-born babies are. His skin was smooth, soft as a
bird’s feather, and radiant. Not sparkling or shining radiance, but pure radiance,
like the pure radiance of his mother, but more so. I was drawn towards the baby
almost involuntarily.
Beniah reached out a hand to stop me, and I froze.
The baby was calling me, but Beniah was both brother and father to me, and I
always obeyed him. But the woman looked up and our eyes met. She smiled the
most beautiful smile and beckoned to me. I felt Beniah let go of my arm, and I approached
the manger.
I knelt down and looked at the baby. He looked into
my eyes, and I was suddenly weak. I was undone. In the child’s eyes I saw such
things as I will never be able to describe, even now I my old age, with the
weight of life on my shoulders. Perhaps I saw heaven, and hell, and life, and
death. And victory. My short life passed before my eyes in the eyes of that
tiny child, and I felt light as bit of sheep’s wool borne aloft by the wind.
This child knew my inmost and deepest thoughts. He knew every hair upon my
head. He could number the stars.
Such an indescribable joy came over me that I began
to sing. As the words drifted from my lips my brothers fell to their knees
behind me.
“My soul cries out to thee, my Lord,
the lord of my longing and my salvation.
I have longed for thee, my Lord,
in the darkness of my soul,
in the iniquity of my heart.
Long have I waited, late I have wept
and cried to thee in my endless sorrow.
Thou hast come, oh Lord of my life;
and thou hast turned my tears to gold,
and my sighs to pearls of high degree.”
I cannot say from whence the words came, nor can I
say I had those thoughts and desires before. Yet as soon as the words left my
lips, I knew they were true thoughts and desires. I gazed upon the child, and
he smiled at me. I recalled the words of the angel: “It is he of whom the prophets
spoke. He it is who shalt free thee from the darkness and the shadow of death.”
I knew that I would follow this tiny, helpless babe to the ends of the earth,
to the grave and back. I knew I would die for this child.
Then I bowed my head and worshiped the child. His
mother smiled with joy and outside the stillness of the night was broken by the
sound of heavenly song.
It was the bleakest of midwinters when a baby brought
the world to its knees.
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When I went to college I began to make more friends. My closest friend was, and still is, my roommate, Jennifer. After her comes my "inner circle" of classmates: Sarah, Jessica, Christine, and Clare. Clare and I did not become very close until our senior year, but when we did I was glad, because though we are total opposites, Clare always brought a ray of extroverted sunshine into my very introverted life. Sarah is the sweetest person I have ever met; Jessica is a wonderful, delightful, perfectly awesome-in-all-ways sort of person; Christine is a generous, empathetic, and delightfully sarcastic person; and Jennifer - well, Jen is my best friend. She knows me almost as well as my own sisters. I let her hear my stories in progress.
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