On the Eve of Christmas Eve

Dikkon Eberhart

[This post was originally published several years ago, one year after the event it recounts occurred. Since then, I have posted it annually as close to Christmas Eve as my posting schedule allowed. This year, Salem Media desired it as part of a Crosswalk.com article I did called "The Meaning of Hallelujah," which you can find under the Publications tab at the top of my website.]

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Don’t skim your eye down the words. Go back and say the words. Say them with measured solemnity, four syllables to each word. Sixteen syllables all together.

You are praising the Lord. This is the Gloria in excelsis Deo that you are pronouncing.

It was late morning on the eve of Christmas Eve. I called my wife at the church. Since she and I came to Christ six years before, she had been our pastor’s secretary. I was checking in, concerned about errands I needed to finish while I was out on the road. We spoke briefly about the errands.

Then I asked her when she planned to come home from the church. Uncharacteristically, she did not know. Usually, she knows. Usually, she knows because she knows what tasks she must finish. Usually, she responds with a time—an hour, two hours.

But this time, she was vague. It was odd of her—my wife is not a vague person, about time or about anything else. “I don’t know,” is what she said, and she said it with a puzzled intonation, as though she wondered why she did not know and yet she said it anyway. I was puzzled, too, when I hung up.

I thought perhaps I should call her back, to ask if she were all right. I thought perhaps I should question her tone of puzzlement, which suggested she did not feel in charge of her time that afternoon. But I did not call her back. I had errands to do.

Here’s what I learned later. After I hung up, an hour or two passed at the church. My wife was alone. She finished tasks. There is always a task to finish on a secretary’s desk. But, puzzlingly, she did not formulate a plan for the finishing of her tasks and for her getting home. Then the church’s door opened and a man entered whom my wife had never seen. The man introduced himself and asked if the pastor were in. The pastor was not in.

The man seemed puzzled by the circumstance that the pastor was not in at the church. “But God told me I must come to see him now.”

“Well, would you like me to make an appointment for you, for later?”

“But God told me I must come to see him now.”

After all—this is how my wife reported the conversation to me—after all, the man was puzzled himself. He had done what God had told him to do. Now, it was the pastor’s turn.

The pastor had left the church not long before, with several plans in his mind. He had not been certain which of the plans he would undertake. He would let my wife know which plan he would undertake, he said, when he knew himself.

My wife dialed the phone. The pastor answered.

“There’s a man here,” she said, and she gave his name. “He says he needs to see you.”

“Oh.”

“I wasn’t certain about your plan.”

“Well, I haven’t selected the plan yet. I don’t know why. Right now, I’m eating lunch.” The pastor thought for a moment. “Can he wait ten minutes?”

My wife looked at the man. “Can you wait ten minutes?”

“Yes.”

She turned back to the phone. “He can wait.”

“See you in ten.”

In ten minutes, the pastor arrived at the church. He and the man went into the pastor’s office. Two hours later, the man accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord, and his name was written in Glory.

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Late that same night, on the eve of Christmas Eve, my wife and I relaxed on our couch. Our house was aromatic with baking gift breads. Our Christmas tree was lit with white bulbs, wax candles burned among our mantel display of spruce boughs and red balls, and twinkling candles were alight in our windows so that, as my mother told me when I was a child, if the Christ Child should need a place to lie down, He would know by our candles that He would be welcome here.

My wife had explained to me the odd events of that afternoon—the man puzzled why the pastor should not be at his office when God had indicated that he would be, my wife puzzled about her inability to manage a time to return to our house so that she was available just at the right moment to make that telephone call to our pastor, our pastor puzzled that he had not selected among his plans for the afternoon so that he was, at the necessary time for the man, just eating lunch.

My wife lay back on the couch and put her feet in my lap. In silence, I stroked her feet. The wine was red in my glass, and white in my wife’s. We listened to Susan Boyle sing Hallelujah. The words of poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen filled the room.

We are busy people, she and I, with several jobs between us—retirees who still work hard, and I had a new book coming out, a memoir recounting my life as the son of a poet father—a father whose poetry molded my relationship with our Father.

Relaxing on our couch, weary after days and days of heavy work for both of us, nearing the completion of our Advent anticipation of a miracle—humbly trying to experience our anticipation with patience—the beauty of the season and of the Christ lights overthrew me.

I wept.

My wife looked her question, but gently: this was her emotional husband.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

I wept for Cohen’s spare, elegiac poetry. I wept for Boyle’s easy voice. I wept for the still, calm beauty of our decorated home. I wept for giving gift bread to our friends, bread which my wife had created. But mostly I wept that, on the eve of Christmas Eve, the Lord Himself had used my wife and our pastor for His own purpose, which was to bring another soul to salvation—that godly using, which had puzzled each of them, as their planning of their day was set aside.

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Hallelujah.

Five Things I Learned About Writing from My Poet Dad

Dikkon Eberhart [A cousin who is a poet and novelist requested a short writerly reminiscence of life with my father. It was to be part of a presentation she was making on the west coast, in honor of what would have been Dad’s 113th birthday—which he did not attend, having died 12 years before. I posted it last year, but many writers are new subscribers to my blog, so I present it again, slightly modified.]

Dad was prominent as a poet. When I was young, I longed not to be a poet. I’d be anything—a quarterback, an FBI agent, a ship captain. But in my soul, I knew I would end up as a chip off Dad’s block. Alas, I was a word-smith, too. So I watched Dad, to learn how. One Read, read, read. Read any style, content, genre, author, date—it doesn’t matter. “We pour our souls into these words, Dikkon. You need to learn to identify writing that’s worth that effort and writing that’s not.” Once, after Dad breezed through an erotic novel I showed him, drily he responded, “Chaucer did it better.” Two Just Start "I can’t write it,” I moaned, regarding my short story assignment in high school. “It’s too hard!” Dad caught Mom’s urging eye, put down his pipe, and asked me, “What’s your story about?” “When they’re choosing up teams, the boy wants to be picked first but maybe he won’t be.” “And?” “I don’t know! Maybe he isn’t picked first, but maybe he hits the home run.” And then I blurted, “It’s due tomorrow!” “Try making the story about his thoughts.” “About his thoughts?” “Yes. Try starting with the word ‘maybe.’” Dad grinned. “Maybe the story is about maybe.” So I wrote the story and submitted it on time. Its first sentence was “Maybe I’ll be picked first but maybe not.” Three Bring the reader in. “Do you like it?” Dad asked. “It’s assigned.” “Not what I asked.” “Then, no. It’s boring.” “Do you think maybe the author’s just writing for himself and maybe for his closest friends?” I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. The author was a major name in modernist English fiction—the focus of my college class. Dad pressed on, “Don’t you think it’s important that you be drawn in?” “Who? Me?” “You’re his reader, aren’t you?” I laughed. “I wouldn’t be his reader, not if I could help it.” “So…that’s my point. Yes, the reader must come to the writer, but the reader will come to the writer only when he’s drawn in, not forced in.” “That’s not happening here.” “So when you’re a writer….” I nodded. “Bring ‘em in.” “Atta boy.” Four Don’t go to sleep until you know what happens next. “No,” Dad said. “I don’t believe in writer’s block.” “It’s my first novel, Dad. I can’t get past the point where I am. You’re a poet, not a novelist. How could you know?” “What’s the last scene you wrote?” I told him. “Go back and write it again.” “What’s wrong with it?” “Doesn’t matter. Probably nothing. But write it again--create it over again. Your juices will begin to flow again, and you’ll speed on.” Turns out he was right—I sped on. Five Don’t let it fester. I called Dad. Two days before, I had finished my second novel, doing its last sixty pages in an eighteen-hour burst of ecstatic—almost holy—writing. “It’s done, Dad.” “Congratulations!” “I’m exhausted.” “Of course. Get a rest.” “Tell Mom.” “Of course. So…what’s next?” “I read it over. I think it’s good. Gotta do some tweaks.” “Do that. But then—get it off your desk.” “What do you mean?” “Don’t let it fester. Get it out into the world. If you tweak it too much, you could kill it. Now let an editor tell you what to do. ” HERE’S A BONUS—one more thing—BECAUSE YOU KEPT ON READING! A Sixth Thing I Learned, but not from Dad Keep trying. Sitting in our garden one day, Robert Frost turned to me and remarked, “Dikkon, the work of the poet is to write at least one single poem that they can’t get rid of. They’ll try. But don’t let ‘em.” *** If You are Not a Writer, God has blessed you with a different burden. But your rules are just the same. One Steep yourself in all available wisdom. Two Begin, even when you are afraid to begin. Three Engage with those outside of yourself by understanding what they desire. Four When stuck, allow your spirit to be refreshed by starting over. Five When finished, bring the others in. ​ And a Bonus! Keep working. Work hard. But take The Longer View. You may win. You may not win. But you tried.

The Last Leaf to Fall

Dikkon Eberhart

During summer, our house swims in shade.

I love shade!

Otherwise our experience of summer in SW Virginia is hot, hot, hot. But our house is surrounded by large oaks and maples, and they keep us in shade, blessedly.

When we bought our house, the woman next door came over and said, “You poor guy, you have no idea what trouble you’re in.”

I was puzzled. I wasn’t in trouble—I was in shade!

My wife and I are grateful for our trees, which keep our house cooler than others and reduce our cooling cost all summer long. The trees cool us because they are covered with leaves. Come fall—which begins in November—the leaves turn yellow, and…they fall.

Billions of them.

Billions upon billions upon billions of them.

They inundate our yard, roof, gutters, porch, driveway, patio, and parking area in back.

Our neighbor was right. The raking job is an enormous task. It is an enormous, on-going task, and it lasts through most of two months.

Reader, don't worry. There is a God point to this blather about leaves. The God point is metaphorically about the last leaf to fall.

Here in our valley we get wind storms. We got a big one five days ago. It was a strong, cool wind (thank the Lord!) roistering through the trees from the northwest, sending that day’s billion of leaves before it—like snow. We had a blizzard of leaves.

Have you noticed something about leaves?

They like moving in a gang. They all make up their minds at the same time, and then they do what the others do. When the wind comes along, they all let go and tumble, as though they were the crazy idea of some slap-dash painter, flinging yellow flakes of tinsel down the air.

But—no—not all of them.

Our blizzard died away. I went outside. The day was cooler than before, and the air was still now, with the sun bright and slantways from low down in the west. Everywhere that I could see, I saw inches—even a foot—of depth of yellow leaves.

I had intended to start by sweeping the porch, but I stopped.

High in one tree, way up, there was one single yellow leaf all by itself out on the end of a twig. It hung there, very still. It caught my eye because it was brightly lit against the blue of the sky by the shaft of the sun.

I watched it for a time, standing as I was in the quiet yellow of the aftermath of the blizzard. That leaf seemed almost to be making up its own mind. That leaf had hung on tight while the wind buffeted it, and while all its friends had let go and had flown. That leaf had hung on, waiting, maybe thinking something through.

What was the something that leaf was thinking through?

Perhaps its allegiance to the Lord.

Everyone else among its leaf friends had known what was right—what was manifest—to do. Everyone else had said, “We are a tide of Christian consciousness sweeping joyfully through the air and then covering the landscape of the Lord.” And they had done just that.

I thought to myself, that last leaf is like we were, my wife and I, eleven years ago.

Then I laughed to myself. Of course, that leaf has no soul—it’s a leaf.

But, I thought, I am a writer and a chaser after metaphor. I have a soul. I have a soul, and—like my one leaf—I had hung on tight to my anchoring point during my wife’s and my nine months of soul struggle, whether to press beyond Judaism toward our rebirth in Christ.

We had hung on, battling that stormy struggle through.

Yes or no?

To deny or to accept?

To let go and to go?

Or not to let go?

And—just as I reached this point in the framing of my thought—up there above me, after the end of the wind storm, that last yellow leaf let go.

As we had, too.

I watched that last yellow leaf flutter peacefully all the way down until it nestled comfortably with its yellow fellows.

​Finally at one with the Lord.