The Petal Paper

MERRY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY FISCAL YEAR

At Christmastime, generally, I relate in this column my favorite Christmas stories. There is one about the Santa Claus in a department store in Hattiesburg who was exhausted after a day of being jolly old St. Nick to the children brought in to see him. It was a few days before Christmas, near closing time of the store, and a parent purchased a bicycle for his child. "Of course," said the father, "Santa Claus will put the bike in the car for us."

Well, good old jolly St. Nick had no choice. While approaching the door to the street, he was pushed and battered about awfully; finally, at the door, with shoppers going in and out, Santa Claus got the bike jammed edgewise and took a terrible pounding. He was exhausted, but more than that, he was exasperated. Unable to get the bike out the door immediately, he exclaimed loudly, so that all heard: "I'll be so damned glad when Christmas is over I won't know what to do." The manager, standing nearby, and having heard jolly old St. Nick, arranged for his Christmas to be over then and there.

My other favorite Christmas story has to do with a little girl. She was attending a presentation of the manger scene in church with her father. Several times those in the play looked into the crib at the new born baby. The little girl, in such wide-eyed innocence, asked her father loudly "Daddy, who's in the basket?"

"Shhh," he said, "that's the little Lord Jesus."

"My goodness," the child said in reply, "what's He doing in Hattiesburg?"

This year I don't think I'll tell those two stories. I saw two editorials from the Tulsa Tribune which, I think, point up the spirit of Christ and the season very well indeed. To me, a frustrated Baptist preacher, the stories below show and give meaning to what Christianity should mean to those who claim to be Christians acts and deeds instead of Sunday morning lip service.

The first of the Tulsa Tribune's comments followed the tornado in Oklahoma earlier this year. It is entitled, BROTHER'S KEEPERS:

Our jaded, cynical society needs occasional demonstrations of how pure Christianity works.

Such an example has been given Oklahomans by members of the Mennonite churches who have dropped their own duties and traveled considerable distances to tackle the tornado rubbish at Sapulpa and Wilburton.

Mennonite customs the beards, the plain dress, the distaste of machinery--may seem queer to most of us. But the spectacle of citizens traveling long distances to participate in the messy, difficult business of cleaning up after a disaster, with no thought of reward or attempt at self-glorification, is inspiring.

The Tribune learned of the Mennonite contribution only after awed Sapulpans called us. No Mennonite press agent had been around. There was no attempt to give a dime's worth of charity in return for a dollar's worth of publicity.

The second story from the editorial page of the Tulsa Tribune (Continued on Page 2)
East Side
(Continued from Page 1)

One was of recent date, and is entitled, "WAS THIS YOU?"

Herewith:

Was this you?
If it was, all we know about you is that you are a well-dressed, responsible-appearing businessman and that you were in the vicinity of Third and Main the other afternoon.

Oh, yes; we know one other fact about you, but that can wait for a moment.

"I first noticed the man," said a lady who phoned us about you, "when he stepped out of a group of people waiting for the bus. Then I saw why he stepped out. A crippled Negro girl was having trouble with the rubber tip on one crutch; couldn't get it to stay on.

"And this man stooped down and helped replace the rubber tip for the girl. She thanked him prettily. But I noticed that he kept watching her as she struggled on up the street.

And, yes, the rubber tip on her crutch came off again.

"The man strode out and caught up with her. Then he sat down on the curb, took a bit of paper or something out of his briefcase, wrapped it on the tip of the crutch, wrestled the rubber cap back on, wiggled it to see if it was tight, then handed it back to the crippled girl with a smile. But in the meantime he had missed his bus."

If that were you, the scanty identification given by the lady was all we know about you—except for one thing: A small deed, a little, nameless kindness such as that paints a much more luminous picture of you than reams of detail on physical description.

And we'll bet you're a pretty nice fellow.

Well, dear friends and gentle people, those are my Christmas stories for this year. Okay, okay! I won't preach, but they are damned good examples of what Christianity should mean. Agree?