The first winter storm blew in yesterday, blanketing our world in white. Although our churches are moving into Advent, and trying to restrain congregational urges to match consumerist hype that we are in the Christmas season, my mind still drifts into humming some lines from “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

The song settled into my brain on Christmas Eves of the 1960s and 1970s. Our Sunday School Christmas Program always happened on Christmas Eve. As we 5-18-year-olds exited after our recitations (with letters we held badly: “C is for…”), songs, and award-cringing performances, Deacons handed each of us a paper bag containing our “good boy” and “good girl” awards: 1 apple, 1 orange, 2 cups of peanuts in the shell, a handful of mixed nuts, and a tiny bag of various chocolates.

We piled into our well-worn 1957 Chevy Impala (yes, turquois with white top and winged rear fins), hoping that Dad’s geniality would end quickly and we could rush home for the main event: peanuts in a big bowl, nuts in a small bowl, fruit in a plastic bowl, and little bags of chocolates scattered on our large table with hasty trades before we opened our meager Christmas presents.

Traditions

At 8 p.m., though, our laughter of surprise and dismay was interrupted. We had to turn on our black-and-white television that received only one station: KCMT. Without fail, they aired “White Christmas” at that time. Ordinarily the television only went on for news and a few evening programs. But the movie “White Christmas” touched my Dad, and through him, all of us, in a special way. It starts out in “the War,” and tracks soldiers returning to a changed United States where they had to find new trades and new relationships that the army did not prepare them for. This was Dad’s story.

Along the way, the need for snow to bring tourist dollars to a Vermont ski resort, now owned by an aging former general whose current poverty and forgottenness so contradicted the “Old Man” who kept his “boys” safe on Europe’s battlefields, becomes the central concern. Taking a popular song (“White Christmas”) from a forgettable 1942 movie (“Holiday Inn”—which also gave its name to a much more successful hotel chain!), our world has never stopped singing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”

Of course, this is a very northern sentiment. Australians had to invent a “White Christmas” fruit cake for their summertime beach Christmases in order to share the dream. Africa would probably not even think about snow, were it not for Ernest Hemingway’s powerful short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” During my time teaching in Nigeria, my students wore hats and coats during Harmattan season (December through February) when dry winds from the Sahara Desert would sweep in, lowering temperatures to the mid-70s. “Sir, aren’t you cold?!” they would ask, as I strolled into class wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and reveling in this reprieve from summer heat and humidity.

Learning and Relearning

I tried to help them understand what real cold—Minnesota winter freezes—was like. I was unsuccessful. Without first experiencing the crisp coldness of a true White Christmas, all eloquent descriptions are mere nonsense.

Recently, however, one of my friends in Uganda talked with me about snow. He knows the Bible well, having read through it many times. But he never understood Isaiah 1:18 (“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”) until he spent a year in Michigan in a Master’s program. Waking one very chilly morning, he was astounded by the blanket of snow that covered everything. Suddenly he was stirred to his deepest core by God’s word of pardon and hope through awestruck Isaiah. He preaches regularly, in snowless Uganda, on this text, bringing tears of joy to people who have never dreamed of a “White Christmas.”

He is an amazing pastor, mining the riches of scripture in his devotions and study, and then passionately proclaiming the struggles of the world as it is, and the vision of what, by the grace of God, it is becoming. He has latched onto a beautiful shorthand summary of the biblical message, learned through his 16-week CLC teaching sessions with new friends from Indonesia, Canada, India and the United States, and now teaches it to others.

Next time I will share that 6-word summary of the Bible. But perhaps you would like to get into one of our life-transforming learning groups. If so, GO HERE.