A Christmas Story

25Dec07

Last night was supposed to be karaoke night at the palapa. Turns out our karaoke guy disappeared and even though O the restaurant manager drove to his house for me, he wasn’t to be found. So no karaoke.

But the night did end up having a lot of mumbling along to songs we’d didn’t really know.

As it turns out, that elderly man who was my main competition for this computer here in the lobby (my iphone isn’t getting along with the wifi here, I suspect they had a falling out a few years ago over a girl) is a little German priest named Wolfred.

Now I feel bad for kinda hovering, I mean, who knows who he was emailing?

To: maryfullofgrace@hotmail.com

From: Wolfred3:16@yahoo.com

Hail Mary,

Can you do something for this internet addict pacing behind me? She’s jonsing bad. Smote her, heal her, I don’t care, I can’t handle the whimpering.

Although as it turns out, he was very nice.

He came down to the palapa (a grass hut restaurant here at the resort) as we were eating out Christmas Eve dinner last night, but all the tables were taken. They were about to seat him outside in the cold, so we invited him over, and then noticed his clerical collar.

He’s spends most of his time in Colombia but was here in San Carlos to preach the Christmas Eve sermon at the local Catholic church. His humor is scarce but wry and unexpected. When I ordered a glass of wine and Rose ordered water, he leaned toward Rose and said, “Better get the wine. I haven’t mastered the trick of turning water in wine. Yet.”

Nick and I shared a cab with him into the town to attend Mass.

Since Nick understood slightly less Spanish than I, and no Churchese at all, I translated as best I could through the songs and readings, and the Father sweetly preached both in English and Spanish, for our benefit.

Most of it was very familiar, similar to the Masses I’d attended back home, except for one thing than kinda threw Little Nick and I for a loop. Towards the end of the service, a few women came up and removed the baby Jesus’ from the various natavity scences and held them as if they were real babies. I don’t mean they held them respectfully, I mean they tickled the feet and blew raspberries on the bellies and cooed at them.

Then they brought them back and passed them around, down each pew, every person holding it for a few moments, with the conviction of little girls playing with their dolls and the inate baby-handling skills of great-grandmothers. As it drew closer to me, I really wasn’t sure what to do, how to participate in this odd little act. I wanted to be respectful of the gesture, but it’s a DOLL. The whole thing reeked of idol worship to me, and we all know that there is but one mediator between man and God, and that’s Gwyneth Paltrow.

So I held it for a few moments, studied it’s eyes, then held it up to my face letting it’s hand touch my face. This seemed to pass inspection.

And as Baby Jesus made his way around the rest of congregation (which took FOREVER) I thought about it, and realized that the symbolism, the idea that God comes in a form that is miraclous, innocent, yet earthly, and very dependant on us to tend it, that peace on earth was something we would all have to create and then care for, well then this was a Jesus I know I’ve always believed in.

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Filed under: Little Nick, Mexico, holidays, religion or politics, shiny things, the internet   |  8 Comments