Mother answered, “We all did, Suzy.”
Suzy stamped. “I’m mad at the old blizzard.”
Mother laughed. “That’s not going to stop the snow. And remember, you’ve been looking for snow every day. Now you’ve got it. With a vengeance. This is the worst blizzard I remember in years.”
John lit the candle in the window and flicked the switch that turns on the outdoor Christmas tree and the light over the garage door. Then we all looked out the windows. The only way you could tell where the road used to be is by the five little pines at the edge of the lawn, and by the birches across the road. The outdoor Christmas tree was laden with snow, and the lights shone through and dropped small pools of color on the white ground. The great flakes of snow were still falling as heavily as ever, soft and starry against the darkness.
“I guess Daddy’ll have to spend the night at the hospital,” John said.
Mother came to the window and looked over our heads. “No car can possibly get up that road.”
Suzy asked, “What’re we going to have for dinner?”
Mother turned from the window. “I think I’ll just take hamburger out of the freezer…” I thought she looked worried.
I stayed by the window. Please let Daddy get home. Please let Daddy get home.
But I knew Mother was right, and a car couldn’t possibly get up the road, even with new snow tires and chains.
Please, God, I’m not bargaining, I’m not bribing or anything, I’m just asking. Please let Daddy get home. If I knew how to offer my whole self I would, but I don’t know how, so please let Daddy get home, please let…
Then, just as the words began to jumble themselves up in my mind, I saw something in the wide expanse of snow, somewhere near where the curve of the road ought to be. A light. “Mother! John! Suzy!” They all came running to the window.
“It’s a flashlight!” John said.
“Snowshoes!” Mother cried. “John, run to the garage and see if Daddy took his snowshoes!”
John hurried to the kitchen door and in a minute came back, grinning happily. “They’re gone.”
The light came closer and closer and soon we could see Daddy, his head and shoulders covered with snow. His snowshoes moved steadily and regularly over the white ground. We ran tumbling out to the garage and flung our arms around him, and the dogs jumped up on him and barked in greeting.
“Whoa!” he said. “Let me get my snowshoes off!” He handed the snowshoes to John, who hung them up. Then he stamped his feet and shook, and snow tumbled off him. The dogs dashed out into the snow, came whirling back into the garage, and shook off even more snow. “Come along,” Daddy said. “Let’s get in out of the cold.”
When we got indoors Daddy kissed Mother. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to get home.”
Daddy said, “You didn’t think I’d leave you now, did you?”
And Mother said, “I’ve been having contractions off and on all day. Oh, I am so glad you’re home!”
Daddy put another log on the fire. Outdoors the snow was still falling. Indoors it was warm and cozy. The star lit up the little stable, and Daddy went to the white cardboard box and took out the tiny wax figure of the baby. “I think we can put him in the manger now.”
Mother said, “We might as well have the reading, now, too, because this is all the Christmas Eve service we’re going to get.”
John went into the living room and turned on the Christmas tree lights so that there was the beauty of the Christmas tree indoors and the Christmas tree outdoors, and Daddy sat by the fire and read us the Christmas story. I looked at the angel on top of the indoor Christmas tree and I felt peaceful and happy.
When we’d finished dinner and were nearly through with the dishes, Mother gave a funny little gasp and said to Daddy, “How are you going to get me to the hospital?”
Daddy laughed. “Upstairs is as far as I’m going to get you tonight.” He looked at us. “Children, I’m going to ask you to finish the dishes and clean up the kitchen.” Suddenly he sounded like a doctor, not just Daddy. “John, put on a full kettle to boil. Blizzards don’t ask anybody when they should come, and neither do babies.”
He put his arm about Mother and they went upstairs.
“What about dessert?” Suzy asked. “We were going to have dessert after we’d done the dishes.”
“If you’re really interested in dessert, I’ll get you some ice cream out of the freezer,” John said.
After all, Suzy is a very little girl. She ate a large bowl of ice cream.
When the kitchen was all cleaned up, Daddy came downstairs. He carried the Christmas stockings and he told us to hang them carefully at the living room fireplace. “You’d be staying up late tonight anyhow, so please just be good. Vicky, keep that kettle hot for me, and feed the cats and put them down in the cellar for the night.”
The snow beat against the windows. The wind rattled the shutters. In spite of her nap Suzy got sleepy and curled up on the living room sofa. I went to the stove. “I’d better make the cocoa to put on the mantelpiece with the cookies for Santa Claus.”
“Make enough for us while you’re at it,” John said.
We drank two, then three cups of cocoa. We tiptoed out to the storeroom where we’d hidden our presents for Mother and Daddy and put them under the tree. Time seemed to stretch out and out and Daddy didn’t come back downstairs. The dogs lay in front of the fire and snored. Suddenly Mr. Rochester, the Great Dane, pricked up his ears. John and I listened, but we didn’t hear anything. At the top of the cellar stairs a cat meowed. Mr. Rochester sat up and raised his head; his tail thumped against the floor.
Then we did hear something, something unmistakable, loud and clear. A cry. A baby’s cry.
I started to get up, but John said, “Wait.”
In a little while Daddy came bounding down the stairs. He was beaming. “You have a little brother, children!” He took the kettle and hurried back up the stairs, calling, “You can come up in a few minutes. Wait.”
The baby cried again, a lusty yell.
I went to the crêche. The light from the star shone down on the stable. The elephant and the pig and her piglets seemed to have moved in closer. The baby lay on his bed of straw.
“Listen.” John held up his hand. Across the fields came the sound of the clock in the church steeple striking midnight. “Let’s wake Suzy up and tell her.”
Suzy sleeps soundly and it took us a long time to wake her properly. By the time she realized what had happened, Daddy came back downstairs.
“You can come up now, for just a minute, children. But Mother’s tired, and the baby’s asleep, so be very quiet.”
We tiptoed up the stairs and into the big bedroom. Mother was lying in the big bed and smiling. In the crook of her arm was a little bundle. We tiptoed closer. The bundle was our baby brother. His face was all puckered and rosy. His eyes were closed tight. He had a wisp of dampish hair. He had a tiny bud of a mouth. One little fist was close to his cheek. We stood and stared at him. We were too excited and awed to speak.
Mother asked, “Isn’t he beautiful?” And we all nodded.
Then Daddy shooed us out. “All right. Time for bed, everybody.”
John went off to his room, and Suzy and I to ours. When we had undressed and brushed our teeth and Suzy was in bed, I stood at the window. The snow had stopped. The ground was a great soft blanket of white, broken by the dark lines of trees and the gay colors of the outdoor tree. The sky was dark and clear and crusted with stars. I watched and watched and there was one star that was brighter and more sparkling than any of the others.
The Christmas star.
Mother was home. Daddy was home. Our baby brother was home. We were all together.
I whispered, “Thank you.”
And the light s
hone right into my heart.
Some of the pieces in this book had been previously unpublished and were reprinted in this book by kind permission of Madeleine L’Engle.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for permission to use these works:
“Joyful in the newness of the heart” from The Anglican Digest (Pentecost, 1983). Reprinted by permission.
“Redeeming All Brokenness” and “Revealing Structure,” from Madeleine L’Engle’s introduction to Awaiting the Child: An Advent Journal by Isabel Anders. Copyright © 1987 by Isabel Anders Throop. Reprinted by permission of Isabel Anders.
“ ‘Anesthetics,’ ” from A Circle of Quiet. Copyright © 1972 by Crosswicks, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
“This Extraordinary Birth,” “Forever’s Start,” “After annunciation,” “A Galaxy, a Baby,” “That Newness,” “The promise of his birth,” “In Human Flesh,” “The birth of wonder,” “A Time of Hope,” “The Eve of Epiphany,” “The Light of the Stars,” “Atomic Furnaces,” and “Soaring,” from The Irrational Season. Copyright © 1977 by Crosswicks, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
“Miracle on 10th Street,” from Life (December 1991). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“This tiny baby” (from “The Baby in the Bath”), “Tree at Christmas,” and “For Dana” (originally titled “For Dana: 4th November”), from Lines Scribbled on an Envelope. Copyright © 1969 by Crosswicks, Ltd. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
“A Full House: An Austin Family Story” (originally titled “A Full House”), from McCall’s (December 1980). Reprinted by permission of the author.
The poem contained in “The Glorious Mystery” beginning “This is no time for a child to be born” was previously published as “The Risk of Birth” in The Risk of Birth, copyright © 1974 by Harold Shaw Publishers. Used by permission.
“Transfiguration” from Stories for the Christian Year. Copyright © 1992 by The Chrysostom Society. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Company.
“Eighty-second Street,” “Chamonix,” “Saying Yes,” “A Deepening Vision,” from The Summer of the Great-Grandmother. Copyright © 1974 by Crosswicks, Ltd. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
“The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas: An Austin Family Story” is a reprint of the book by the same title, copyright © 1984 by Crosswicks, Ltd. Used by permission of Harold Shaw Publishers.
Selections from the following books by Madeleine L’Engle used by permission of Harold Shaw Publishers: Anytime Prayers, A Cry like a Bell, Penguins and Golden Calves, The Rock That Is Higher, Sold into Egypt, A Stone for a Pillow, Walking on Water, and The Weather of the Heart.
Thanks also to the Wheaton College Special Collections for providing many of the materials used in this book.
by Lindsay Lackey
Though I read many classic fantasies as a child—the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and so many others—it was in Madeleine L’Engle’s stories that I was first dazzled by the impossible.
The book that most vividly ushered me into wonder was her Newbery Honor–winning A Ring of Endless Light. In it, a teenage Vicky Austin faces the death of her grandfather while simultaneously discovering her own identity as a young woman through friendship, romance, and, wondrously, a connection with wild dolphins. In one scene, Vicky has an encounter with the dolphins that is almost magical, and yet is also beautifully real. It was this book—and especially this scene—that turned me into an avid L’Engle fan.
Throughout her vast body of work, L’Engle returns again and again to themes of the impossible. In “Impossible Things,” she says, “Unless we practice believing in the impossible daily and diligently, we cannot be Christians…” How does one practice believing in the impossible? If it can be practiced, does that mean belief in the impossible is like a muscle—if we work it, it will grow?
Because of L’Engle’s own willingness to grapple with impossibility—because, as she says, she is able to glory in it though she might not understand it—I, too, have attempted to practice my belief in impossible things. In fact, my first novel, All the Impossible Things (Roaring Brook Press, 2019), reflects my own wrestling with, and glorying in, impossibility and belief.
But belief is not easy. Hardship and suffering are a real part of our lives, and the darkness of despair can press in on us from all sides, perhaps especially during the Christmas season. Though it is a time of joy and celebration, it is also a time when our losses are felt more acutely. Busyness and anxiety can overwhelm. Consumerism can anesthetize us to the miraculous. Sometimes each day, each year, feels more oppressive and disheartening than the last.
Yet, Madeleine L’Engle reminds us here that belief is a muscle. It strengthens with use. Like Vicky Austin, and like Madeleine L’Engle herself, I continue to strive toward belief. And though Christmas is often difficult, it is also an invitation for renewal, redemption, and hope. For, as L’Engle says:
Renew—
redeem,
oh, Love, until we, too, may dazzle bright.
Advent
This section begins by asserting that “advent is not a time to declare, but to listen.” Take a moment to quiet your mind. Listen first to the sound of your breathing. As you enter into stillness, ask God to help you listen. What might you need to hear today? What revelations await you in the words and meditations of Madeleine L’Engle?
In “Redeeming All Brokenness,” L’Engle assures us of “the coming of all Love, that love which will redeem all the brokenness, wrongness, hardnesses of heart which have afflicted us.” What brokenness have you experienced in life? In what ways have you found healing? In what ways have you yet to heal?
Pick a poem from this section and spend some time with it. Why does this poem speak to you? What imagery from the poem is especially vibrant? Is there anything startling or even uncomfortable for you in this poem? If so, what is it, and why does it strike you?
Incarnation
Do you believe you matter to God? Why or why not? How do the readings in this section impact your understanding of your worth to God, if at all?
Read the poem “The first coming” again. Notice how L’Engle presents the paradox of the great (“storms of hydrogen clouds, / the still-forming galaxies”) with the small (“smaller than the smallest / subatomic particle”). How does this challenge your understanding of God? How does this poem make you feel? Which is easier for you to comprehend—God the creator of galaxies, or God growing in the womb of a young woman?
In “Impossible Things,” L’Engle says, “Unless we practice believing in the impossible daily and diligently, we cannot be Christians.” How does one practice believing in the impossible? In what ways do you believe in impossible things? What helps you to believe in the impossible? What questions do you have about the “impossible” thing that is Jesus’ total humanity and total divinity?
Epiphany
In what ways have you experienced suffering in your life? Did you feel God close to you in those times, or did you feel alone? How does hardship remind you of the miracle of the everyday? What have your trials taught you?
Have you ever celebrated Epiphany? How so? If you haven’t, why not? Take some time to read the Christmas story in the Bible and consider the journey of the kings, or Wise Men, who visited Christ. In what ways do you “journey” toward Christ during the Christmas season? What draws you to Him? How do you celebrate His birth?
L’Engle discusses the ways in which “winter reveals structure,” namely, how a spiritual winter reveals the structure of our faith. What does this mean to you? How does hardship reveal your faith? She also mentions how hardship can have an anesthetizing effect on us, numbing us
to possibility. Have you ever experienced this? How so?
Glorious Mystery
Select one of the poems from this section and reread it several times. How does it change or deepen with each reading? What images stand out to you? Why? What is the author saying about God in this poem? Do her ideas challenge or stretch your own faith in any way? Why or why not?
L’Engle frequently discusses the courage of Mary. Does love make us vulnerable? How? In what way does love for another require courage? How does loving God require courage? In what ways does God’s love give you courage?
When you look at the stars, how do you feel? Small? Important? Why or why not? For L’Engle, considering the stars gave her “the strange reaction of feeling fully alive.” Why do you think she felt this way? What makes you feel fully alive?
Redemption
Which piece in this section is your favorite? Are you drawn more to poetry or prose? Fiction or essay? Discuss the themes that stand out to you in the piece you chose. Why did you choose this one? What does it say or reveal to you? How does your understanding of Christmas, of Jesus, grow with this reading?
In “A Full House: An Austin Family Story,” the Austin family receives a number of unexpected visitors on Christmas Eve. How does this change their Christmas ritual? Have your Christmas routines ever been disrupted by unexpected guests or unexpected circumstances? How did you react? Did that situation change your experience of Christmas or the meaning of Christmas for you at all? If so, how?
Miracle on 10th Street Page 13