My nephew's going to one of those noisy nativities. He is seven. The idea I think is that children just turn up, dressed as whatever they like: shepherd, king, the angel Gabriel, Spider-Man, a penguin or Elsa from Frozen... and the organisers just sort of fit everybody in and make it work, hoping that they'll get at least one of everything required to make a nativity. It sounds like chaos to me.
"Who are you going as, Ben?" asked his Mum.
"Jesus," he said with a perfectly straight face.
Personally, I think the organisers of such events are living on a plane of reality somewhere between brave, brilliant and barmy. A roomful of hyper-active, dressed-up children, screaming and wailing into their cotton-wool beards and itchy tea-towel costumes, sounds like a kind of explosive stress-bomb. Shepherding them into a carefully arranged nativity tableau would not only be a complex matter of logistical politics, but it would require a skill-set summoned from another dimension. Or perhaps a whistle and a loud-hailer.
Imagine my own paralysis then, when the practice for our church's Christmas celebration was a melee of stressed adults, flying children and costumes. It was a cacophonous mix of tears and shouting, stuff being moved around, microphones being tested and twisted into place with a crackling thud. I stood by the wall, clutching my music folder, just observing - unable to do anything.
"I saw you," said a small voice.
"Hello!" I said bending down. "I'm Matt, and who are you?"
"Oscar," he said, proudly. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, beaming up at me in the way that only children can. His little dark eyes sparkled and his smile was wide and innocent. He had a mop of curly dark hair.
"I saw you," he said again, "Playing the piano."
"Oh yes!" I said, "I do like to play the piano. Do you like to play music, Oscar?"
He nodded. Then he ran away, perhaps a bit shy.
I wondered suddenly, what I would have been like at that age - perhaps I had that same innocent smile and sparkling eyes. Perhaps I would have found a giant I'd seen playing the piano and I would have stared up at him in awe. Perhaps maybe that giant would have been a very friendly giant and would have asked my name. Perhaps I would have resolved to learn how to play that complicated looking instrument one day, just like the man I saw standing by the wall next to the piano.
At what point do we lose the ability to be wide-eyed in wonder? I'm serious - when does it happen? Do we get to our teenage years and suddenly imagine we've seen it all, that we're un-shockable or unimpressed by anything? Well you don't have to get too far out of the other side of your teenage years to realise that that was all nonsense. So what happens, why do we grow up without the wonder? What's wrong with Ben wanting to turn up to a nativity dressed as the central character? (though I don't know whether he'd had a costume in mind). Why shouldn't Oscar's eyes glint at the thought of playing the piano with great style and elegance?
I think it's a good question to ask: what makes you wonder, what causes you to feel like you've been pulled out of reality into something you'd never even considered before? Fine art? Great music? Scenery? Landscapes? A stirring theme from a great orator or speechwriter? What inspires you? What makes you breathe it in on the top of the mountain top? These are the things we should look for, I reckon. Not only do they make us feel alive but they make everyone else feel it too when they see it in us.
Then, I would say that. At the heart of inspiration, I say, is the Creator himself, the source of wonder, the designer of awe, the great author of everything that is good. Not only does he make us feel alive, I repeat to myself, but he makes everyone else feel it too when they see him in us.
Never lose the wonder.
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