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DA Z 3 oo LS og Sar Patil SCPE The tug back to God By Rev. Stuart McEntyre St. John's Presbyterian Church "Christmas is love...tugging men back to God.. with the powerful clasp of a tiny hand, reaching out from a bed of straw". So spoke the poet. The Bethlehem scene is suffused with heavenly beauty and the bold claim of Christianity is that God was in Christ, for a purpose: to seek and to save that which is lost; to proclaim that the true dwelling place of God is in man. The human condition needed and still needs rescuing. Some fear that Western civilization is falling apart at the seams. Our culture has largely abandoned moral and spiritual values, having fallen prey to scientism and materialism. Somé in the scientific community even speak of the end of human history in apocalyptic terms reminiscent of the prophets... atmospheric. pollution, limited natural resources, possible fa prospect of fiuclear self-destruction. The Russian novelist Solzhenitsyn pinpoints part of our problem as being a lack of conscience and will in the face of totalitarian Communism which is con- stantly spreading its tentacles across the face of the globe. Muggeridge, the British journalist, points to the mass media's promotion and exploitation of moral shallowness and spiritual superficiality in our materialistic culture. Behind the tinsel" of our existence much of our society's motivating drives are sub-human. Why? Because of the old-fashioned and yet up-to-date distemper of the human race: sin. That is why inhumanity continues to sweep aver our world like a great tidal wave. . Nevertheless, Love is still "tugging men back to God with the powerful clasp of a tiny hand reaching our from a bed of straw". Christmas, if we would appropriate its spiritual truth personally and corpor- ately, can bring us to the place where we can learn anew the secret of how our race can be made human and our sub-human behaviour can be overcome. That is why God became man in Jesus Christ. This same Jesus sald in his manhood: "Repent and believe*tti& Good News.' - "Change the direction of your life, come to Me and find meaning and purpose.' This same Jesus accepted death upon a Cross. He died for us and for our salvation...a profound mystery made brilliant .with sacrificial love. Lo Even as his mother, Mary, proclaimed her faith in the Magnificat: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord And my spirit exults in God my Saviour." So we can come to make a mature confession of faith during this Christmas season. Christmas is a time when we can renew hope and begin to create a new future. | continue to believe deeply in the beauty of the Gospel that began in Bethlehem. | appropriate the following as a statement of personal faith: "1 affirm my faith in the reality of the spiritual world, in the sacred voice of duty, in the compelling ine in an overpopulated world, the . power of truth and holiness, in prayer, in the life eternal, in Jesus Christ, who is the-light of my life Fen navy! en HAUT. . ip stp! \ Remember When..? home of Mrs. George 50 YEARS AGO Thurs., December 17, 1925 Mr. Norman DeShane has been appointed caretaker of the Port Perry rink. The lady teachers of the United Church Sunday School gave a shower at the tis prior to her. marriage to Mr. James Harvey Real. 25 YEARS AGO Thurs., December 21, 1950 Public School children tried out the ice at the new Arena and the reality behind all things visible. | rejoice to believe in God!" | believe in prayer and meditation in the presence of God, in the conscious purging of the soul from fear, love of gain, and selfish ambition through realizing God; in bringing the intellect into alignment with the mind of Jesus Christ and in reaffirming the alle- giance of the will to the Kingdom of-God...| affirm my faith in life. | call life good and not evil...Through Christ'l can be more than conqueror." Such a faith can overcome this world's confounding contradictions for Love tugs us back to God ""with the powerful clasp of a tiny hand reaching out from a bed of straw". } a Jackson for Miss May Coul-' this week for the first time. The first to skate on the ice was Bobby Carnegie. Mr. Jack Green has resign- ed as Dairy Herd Supervisor of Durham County. A posit- ion he has held for one year and a half. His successor is Mr. Black of Bowmanville. 15 YEARS AGO Thurs., December 15, 1960 Mr. Jack Beare has been appointed Manager of Eaton's store in Kitchener. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. M. T. Beare of Port Perry and a brother of Lorne of Uxbridge, and attended school in Port Perry. Members of the Public School Board in Port Perry elected by the voters this . year were Robert V. Archer, Stanley Bruton, Frank Godley, Gordon Goode and William Taylor. 10 YEARS AGO Thurs., December 16, 1965 Joan Horton and Judy Mountjoy, members of the 1st Blackstock Company of Girl Guides under the leadership of Mrs. Ivan Thompson, were presented with their All-Round Cords. The Hospital Auxiliary members this year held their Christmas meeting at a luncheon at the home of Mrs. M. B. Dymond. This week was a red letter week in the history of Cart- wright Central School when four new classrooms, a general purpose room and a new Principal's office was officially opened. This makes a total of twelve classrooms. Bill Smiley Things are too golden There is something terribly wrong around wrong for the Smileys. It is virtually many maledictions, it was like standing in up". Never decorated. When my daughter our house this year, as Christmas looms. 1 have a disturbing feeling that a catastrophy is in the offing. What bothers me is that everything is. going too well. Two weeks in advance, the turkey was ordered, special, fresh-killed, ~ not one of those frozen, eviscerated, straw- tasting, morgue-like, pallid blobs we usually pick up at the last minute. Christmas cards were dispatched on time (after those rotten posties ended theit strike just a little too soon). Lo Christmas gifts were actually bought and wrapped almost a week in advance, instead of that mad lurch through the stores on Christmas Eve, snatchiiig up broken toys, soiled sweaters and other junk a drunken lumberjack wouldn't buy, and bundling it into last second wrappings that were too skimpy. We even knew two weeks in advance who was going to be here for Christmas. Many - a time and oft, our kids have come popping in from hundreds of miles away as late as Christmas morning, without warning. This year, it's just Pokey and his mom and dad, the old Battle Axe, and yours truly. Grandad is going to sit this one out at home, alone. Son Hugh won't be here. He'll be dining on roast llama in the highlands of Paraguay, if he's not in jail. We even have a'plum pudding all ready. It is not only all You see what I mean? 300. frightening. It has never happened before. It's got to be the calm before the storm. Something eerie is going to happen. Even my wife is becoming convinced we're going to get it in the groin, or some other vulnerable spot. What has convinved me that the roof is going to fall in, the final piece of evidence, is the Christmas tree. Not only was it purchased two weeks in advance, but it's a beauty, a blue Spruce about 10 feet high, that even looks like a Christmas tree. You know, it has branches all around, instead of just one side. This is ridiculous on all counts. My usual tree is bought the day before Christmas. It is one of the last four trees on a lot that held It is covered with snow and ice. It is either eight feet tall and one foot wide, or it is hump-backed, or it is one half of a pair of Christmas tree Siamese twins, totally devoid of anything on the side you're not looking at. . I have had trees as bandy-legged as a cowboy. I have had huge White Pines, so vast I had to cut a couple of saw-logs off the bottom to get them into the house. One year I had a tree with so few branches on it that 1 had to drill holes in the trunk, and insert branches from another tree to make it look less skeletal. I have had trees so crooked that when they were finally raised after much sweat and the presence of a man with two wall eyes, one pointing west, the other east. My wife. used to leave the house when I was putting up the tree. It was better that way. This time, she came home after two hours ready to help me decorate our handsome Spruce. She gave a shriek the moment she . entered the house. She thought it was on fire. Clouds of blue smoke were pouring out of the living room. She heard the sound of weeping. Her heart almost stopped. She rushed in, fighting her way through' the blue air. In the corner, the fine, bushy Spruce was lying on its side. There was no sign of me. She started to get sore. 'Has he actually had the gall to get into the Christmas spirits already?" . Then she heard the choked sobs, mingled with -moans- of pain and rage. She looked at the tree at one end. ) And there I was. Under it. Face scratched and bleeding. One thumb mash- ed flat by the hammer. A chunk torn off the knuckles when the screwdriver slipped. ;An expression of utter despair on the tattered countenance. That was the year nobody was coming for the holidays until after Christmas. I finally got off the floor, stood the beast up in the corner, and took a hockey stick to it. That was the year the tree never was*' 'put - THRE AER FEA 3 i NN Rs aE AS and family arrived a couple of days after Christmas, it was still leaning there in the corner. "What happened to the tree, Dad?" she queried in horrified disbelief. "Ah... it was too dry; reedles were falling off + Decided to take it down, throw it out." Brusquely. "Needles? left!" Oh well, this year it's going to be different. Usually we have two trees, one small and one big. This year, just one, because of Pokey. I figure that if we mount a 24-hour guard, in shifts, we just might be able to prevent him from trying to climb it. And my son-in-law claims to be an artist. So the tree is ready, and your faithful correspondent is going to sit in a big chair, reading the Lives of the Saints, while the artist not only erects the tree, but decorates it. Allis golden, for once. And yet...and yet, I have this sense of unease. Things are too golden. A lump of lead is going to come out of somewhere and get me right between the eyes. "And may you, too, all of you, have a Merry, rather than a hairy, Christmas. It hasn't even any branches The Argyle Syndicate Ltd. «