These days I find myself struggling with the Christmas thing. Like most adults, I’ve lived through many of them. I’ve had times when the whole Nativity has been tremendously meaningful to me, and other times when it barely passes through my consciousness – this year, the latter condition seems to apply.
But sooner or later, all those carols on the radio start to get to me – John Rutter’s Candlelight Carol for example, or Harold Darke’s arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter, or perhaps that most moving German Christmas song, Still, Still, Still, Weils Kindlein Schalfen Will, sung so beautifully by Bryn Terfel on his album Simple Gifts.
I suppose its something about a message based on an infant “bringing down the mighty from their thrones”, which runs so counter to the strong-flowing current of modern life. And so I turn once again to The Other Wise Man. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it but it seems to resonate with my mood most years, when all the paraphernalia of Christmas overwhelms the story of a baby being born who somehow gives a glimmer of hope to those who wish to receive it. You can find The Other Wise Man for free on the net on Project Gutenburg. Its not very long and won’t take more than half an hour or so to read.
The Other Wise Man is a simple story of a fourth wise man, Artaban, a Zoroastrian scholar, who wants to travel with the other three Magi to follow the star, but keeps getting held up because he responds to people on the way who need his help. The poor man arrives too late to see the baby, but then there’s a catch at the end which seems to encapsulate the message of the Nativity and usually gets to me in one way or another.
I think what I like about the story, is that its for those who don’t believe, those people who never quite grasp what religion is all about and perhaps don’t even want to. Its for people like me who don’t really believe that anything happens to us when we die but still want to live as good a life as we can manage without really wanting to articulate why that might matter.
The author Henry Van Dyke was one of those men whose memory is lost in the mists of time, an American Presbyterian clergyman who wrote much about his faith, most of it long-forgotten. Nowadays The Other Wise Man is the only book for which he is remembered, and the edition I have is only 60 pages long including illustrations such as the one on the right.
I remember having my mother read that story as a child. When I was very young, it was not so much the story as being snug in mom’s lap while she read it to me and my sisters.Later as I grew older,the meaning settled into my heart, and it would not be Christmas or Easter witout reading the story. I feel sorry for those who have not read it.