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I was trudging through the Christmas madness of Manhattan where people were twelve deep trying to get a peek at the windows of Bergdorf Goodman’s at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. I clawed my way to get close enough to see the famous windows and they were indeed beautiful, but the crowd was claustrophobic. Just when I finally got close a man hoisted a child onto his shoulders and all I could see was the red of the child’s winter coat almost pressed against my nose.
Some of the windows, that seemed to have nothing to do with Christmas other than a tree with ornaments tucked in a corner, hyped their Christmas fashions. They had far fewer crowds than the windows where people seemingly wanted physical contact with a sense of awe, wonder, splendor, and beauty that would transport them to a place where all is magical and bright, if only for a couple of weeks before December 25th. I was getting very frustrated and disappointed. Bah, humbug!
Suddenly, I felt summoned by a power far greater than myself to leave the madness and walk across the street into Central Park. I have been in Central Park hundreds of times but have yet to find a Bergdorf Goodman window there. But the silent beckoning had begun. I came for a magical land of glamor and glitter and entered a land of pigeons and people. That was not what I was looking for. I felt somewhat disappointed. Almost defeated. And yet, in my loneliness and disappointment, when I could not find peace, peace found me.
The park was a winter wonderland; covered in freshly fallen, virgin snow. The air was swirling with tornadoes of joy and blizzards of hope. Children were riding flattened cardboard boxes down vague inclines that they loudly declared were mountains! Though strangers each unto the other, they cheered and encouraged each other’s cardboard sled attempts.
The younger children, too young even for sledding, stuck out their tongue to taste a snowflake and giggled hysterically as it melted on contact. And I, and those around me giggled with them. We were a community of giggling strangers, nodding knowingly to each other in a winter wonderland.
The falling snow muffled the sounds of sirens and taxi horns. The smell of roasting chestnuts wafted through the air. I do not enjoy the taste of chestnuts roasted on an open fire, but I would sorely miss the smell of them if they were not sold on street corners by vendors so tightly bundled snug in sweaters and scarves that I was not sure if they had faces. Bare trees were coated in a meringue of whiteness that looked so sweet I wanted to bite the branches!
I felt… I felt… at peace. In a manger called Central Park, surrounded by throngs of strangers, I bore witness to the miraculous birth of Christmas. Perhaps, I mused, such miracles might be common at any time of year, if I would not take them for granted, or assume that they couldn’t possibly be true. With just a pinch of hope, a dollop of faith and a smidgen of willingness to believe, the world could be transformed into a place where all is calm and all is bright, on a silent and holy night. All I had to do was open my hands and my heart and receive it.
Could life, I wondered, really be as beautiful and delicate as a vulnerable baby born in a manger? If a young, unwed girl named Mary could tell people that she was a virgin with the child of God in her womb and be at peace despite what people said or thought about it, then perhaps we can be at peace with our own self despite what those around us are say or think.
Perhaps we can be at peace no matter what we are going through. If a child named Jesus could be at peace in those troubled times, then we can be at peace as we celebrate Christmas in these troubled times.
If Mary could be at peace in a lowly manger, then we could be at peace in any place or situation where unexpected visits from angels might occur. It could happen at Bergdorf Goodman’s or a soup kitchen. It could happen on Park Avenue or park bench. It could happen at Yale or in jail.
Waiting for another chance is over. The prophecy is fulfilled. The Prince of Peace, born in a barn two millennia ago, is born in us today. Everything, everything is new. Open your heart and accept it. Give peace a chance, just as peace gives you a chance.
May the peace of the God of your understanding shine down upon you, and out from within, and may you radiate and share peace with those you meet, now and well into the future. Amen.
Peace is now,
Dwight Lee Wolter
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