The big apple at Christmas. Shimmering lights. Ice skating in Central Park. Heading uptown to hear the boys' choir sing carols. Tickets to a concert, a ballet performance, a Broadway play. This holiday season, we New Yorkers still have our share of all that. But the real meaning of Christmas came early to New York this year. It came in response to the events of September 11.
From the moment I heard a plane flying too low in the skies outside my bedroom, and then a pop, and looked out the window to see a dark, gaping hole in the World Trade Center, I knew that the ensuing days and months would bring a string of questions we'd all eventually ask ourselves—questions like, What is true? What really is substantial? And, perhaps the most vital question of all, What can I do to help?
When I need answers to questions like these, I turn to the God who reigns supreme, the God who is always with us—who is Life itself. The God who creates only good.
Thinking back, that day in September was one of such indescribable horror. My neighbors were dropping to their knees on the sidewalk, screaming in despair. My own heart was breaking.
I prayed all day for the people still in the buildings, for the city—for an answer to the question, How can I "activate" my prayer? And I trusted that somehow there would be a bridge between my understanding of God as good, and the great need in and around me to help in a tangible way. And I was sure that love for God, and love that comes from God would find its way to act.
I thought of a family center nearby and went there to offer spiritual counseling. The volunteers welcomed me, but there was an immediate space problem. Come back in a few days, they said, and they'd give me a desk. But as I walked home along that line of people clutching photos of their loved ones, tears streamed down my face. "A few days" seemed too late. Then, standing in the middle of a vacant Fifth Avenue, I thought of some words I'd read many times in Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "... good is not helpless." Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 207. Love was what was really needed here. No one needs a desk in order to love, I thought.
Though it might have felt familiar and safe to go back home and stay in my study and pray, there was no denying that Jesus, who embodied the Christ, the ministering love of God, was with the people. He walked right up to them and healed them. The Bible tells about a time when an important man asked Jesus to come and heal his daughter. Jesus went right away. But the story adds, "And so did his disciples." See Matt. 9:19 (italics added). That's us, I reasoned. That means me.
So the next day when I went back out into the streets, I took a satchel filled with copies of the Christian Science Sentinel, the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm. I talked with people about their hopes. We talked about God's love for them and for their loved ones who were still missing. We talked about love that is enduring and stronger than hatred and fear and death. We talked about inevitable good. We took note of the love being expressed by others all around us. There was an overwhelming generosity being seen and felt all over the city.
Ever since that day, the city of New York has seemed strong and soft all at the same time. Never has humanity's capacity to be the child of God been so apparent to me on such a wide scale. I know that people have been feeling the presence of the Christ-spirit. And that they still are.
This year, the signs of Christmas are the hope and love in our neighbors' eyes, the increased patience, the holding of a door open longer than necessary, the tender smiles exchanged at the check-out counter, the affection openly given at the farmers' market. There is a heightened awareness of the power of love. That love has transformed us New Yorkers. And that love is here to stay.
So merry Christmas from the Big Apple. And, love.
