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A True Christmas Story
Dec. 25th, 2010 01:29 amFor Christmas this year I made a nun cry. Good tears. The good kind of tears. Here's how it happened.
I went to two Christmas Eve church services. First to the one at my church, Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church, where I sing in the choir. Then I drove around and looked at Christmas lights with my friend Pat, and then I decided to go to the ten-o-clock service at College Heights United Church of Christ, which is the congregation my church shares a building with. I know the music minister there, and the interim pastor and his partner, and really like them, and I wanted to sing some more carols and hear the Christmas story one more time before I went home to settle all snug in my bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.
So I went to the second service, and then I headed over the hill to Pacifica. It was 11:35 by the time I got to town, and I had only a quarter tank of gas. I knew I'd be driving to my father's house in Healdsburg, an eighty mile drive, in the morning, and didn't want to have to stop for gas then, so I decided to go fill my tank before I headed home. I pulled into the station, which looked pretty deserted, but since I was paying by credit card, no worries. Automated pumps make everything easier.
While I was filling my tank, a small brown car drove up, and after a moment, a well-dressed middle-aged Asian woman got out. She was wearing a zebra-print black and white dress, which was both elegant and fun, and black stockings and a little make-up. I guessed she was either on her way to a Midnight Mass somewhere, or, like me, on her way home from an earlier Christmas Eve service.
She walked towards the lit-but-empty cashier's booth, clutching a bill in her hand. With no cashier, I knew there would be no way for her to pay for her gas with cash. So I approached her, and said, "No one's there?"
She looked anxious. "No. He's usually here."
"Tell you what," I said. "Merry Christmas. I'll buy your gas."
She looked a little shocked and then she said, "You have to let me give you my money." She held out the bill to me — a five.
I nodded and took it, and put my credit card in to start the pump for her. And then, while she put gas in her car, I chatted to her. She asked if I was on my way to Mass, and I said, no, on my way home from an earlier service. And she said she was on her way to Mass, and she just needed gas, and I was an angel for helping her. The gas kept pumping beyond five dollars, but I wasn't going to say anything. It was my Christmas gift to a stranger, to buy her a tank of gas so she could get to Mass.
She noticed when it got to about twenty-three dollars. She started to apologize profusely, but I cut her off, and repeated that it was a Christmas gift. I said I knew that next time she ran into someone in a tight spot, she'd do something nice for them, and the good would continue in the world.
She started to cry.
She told me she worked in world-wide ministry for the poor. That she was a Carmelite nun of the third order, one who was out in the world. And that today she had prayed for something good to happen to her. She said she'd been feeling really sad and lonely, and had been putting on a good face for everyone else, but had been feeling so blue inside. So she'd prayed for something to restore her faith.
And then I had showed up and bought her a tank of gas.
She cried, and called me an angel several times. And hugged me. I hugged her. I held her hands until she stopped crying and could smile again. We exchanged phone numbers and a promise to get together at the Chit Chat Cafe for coffee sometime soon. And then we wished each other a Merry Christmas again, and she left to go to Mass, and I came home.
At my church service tonight, Reverend Terri's sermon was on God embodied in the baby Jesus. And how, though God had once had hands and feet and a face and walked the Earth as a man, now we were all called to be the hands and feet and face of God. Over the four weeks of Advent we have talked about Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Reverend Terri asked us to think about how we brought each of those things to the world. I thought about it, and I could see how I bring love and joy to the world, but I wasn't so sure about peace or hope. I prayed to be a channel for hope and peace in some way.
And then, only a couple hours later, I decided at the last minute to stop at the gas station, and was there at exactly the right time, at fifteen minutes to Midnight on Christmas Eve, to restore a nun's hope.
I'm still a little staggered by it all.
Merry Christmas. May the coming year be one of hope, peace, joy, and love for you all.
Nezu
I went to two Christmas Eve church services. First to the one at my church, Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church, where I sing in the choir. Then I drove around and looked at Christmas lights with my friend Pat, and then I decided to go to the ten-o-clock service at College Heights United Church of Christ, which is the congregation my church shares a building with. I know the music minister there, and the interim pastor and his partner, and really like them, and I wanted to sing some more carols and hear the Christmas story one more time before I went home to settle all snug in my bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.
So I went to the second service, and then I headed over the hill to Pacifica. It was 11:35 by the time I got to town, and I had only a quarter tank of gas. I knew I'd be driving to my father's house in Healdsburg, an eighty mile drive, in the morning, and didn't want to have to stop for gas then, so I decided to go fill my tank before I headed home. I pulled into the station, which looked pretty deserted, but since I was paying by credit card, no worries. Automated pumps make everything easier.
While I was filling my tank, a small brown car drove up, and after a moment, a well-dressed middle-aged Asian woman got out. She was wearing a zebra-print black and white dress, which was both elegant and fun, and black stockings and a little make-up. I guessed she was either on her way to a Midnight Mass somewhere, or, like me, on her way home from an earlier Christmas Eve service.
She walked towards the lit-but-empty cashier's booth, clutching a bill in her hand. With no cashier, I knew there would be no way for her to pay for her gas with cash. So I approached her, and said, "No one's there?"
She looked anxious. "No. He's usually here."
"Tell you what," I said. "Merry Christmas. I'll buy your gas."
She looked a little shocked and then she said, "You have to let me give you my money." She held out the bill to me — a five.
I nodded and took it, and put my credit card in to start the pump for her. And then, while she put gas in her car, I chatted to her. She asked if I was on my way to Mass, and I said, no, on my way home from an earlier service. And she said she was on her way to Mass, and she just needed gas, and I was an angel for helping her. The gas kept pumping beyond five dollars, but I wasn't going to say anything. It was my Christmas gift to a stranger, to buy her a tank of gas so she could get to Mass.
She noticed when it got to about twenty-three dollars. She started to apologize profusely, but I cut her off, and repeated that it was a Christmas gift. I said I knew that next time she ran into someone in a tight spot, she'd do something nice for them, and the good would continue in the world.
She started to cry.
She told me she worked in world-wide ministry for the poor. That she was a Carmelite nun of the third order, one who was out in the world. And that today she had prayed for something good to happen to her. She said she'd been feeling really sad and lonely, and had been putting on a good face for everyone else, but had been feeling so blue inside. So she'd prayed for something to restore her faith.
And then I had showed up and bought her a tank of gas.
She cried, and called me an angel several times. And hugged me. I hugged her. I held her hands until she stopped crying and could smile again. We exchanged phone numbers and a promise to get together at the Chit Chat Cafe for coffee sometime soon. And then we wished each other a Merry Christmas again, and she left to go to Mass, and I came home.
At my church service tonight, Reverend Terri's sermon was on God embodied in the baby Jesus. And how, though God had once had hands and feet and a face and walked the Earth as a man, now we were all called to be the hands and feet and face of God. Over the four weeks of Advent we have talked about Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Reverend Terri asked us to think about how we brought each of those things to the world. I thought about it, and I could see how I bring love and joy to the world, but I wasn't so sure about peace or hope. I prayed to be a channel for hope and peace in some way.
And then, only a couple hours later, I decided at the last minute to stop at the gas station, and was there at exactly the right time, at fifteen minutes to Midnight on Christmas Eve, to restore a nun's hope.
I'm still a little staggered by it all.
Merry Christmas. May the coming year be one of hope, peace, joy, and love for you all.
Nezu
