Most people who observe Christmas probably hope to experience at least a moment when the spirit of the holidays will take hold of them. A Christmas moment might be described as feeling the touch of divine wonder—a warm love that makes you feel worthy and good.
Such moments can happen to anyone at anytime, as I was reminded recently when I read a story by Dan Taylor, retold in the book Messy Spirituality. The experience he writes about happened in his sixth-grade class. Mr. Taylor must have grown up in the Neanderthal period, as I did, because our schools followed the same practice of making children choose other children for dance partners in front of the whole class. Over and over again the least popular kids endured the shame of being chosen last.
One day an assistant teacher who went to Dan's church called him aside and told him that at the next class she wanted him to ask Mary to dance. Mary?!—the disabled, slow, fat girl—WHY? Because, his teacher said, it's what Jesus would have done.
