Light of Heaven

A tale of Christmas and hope in a conflicted world

Christmas in a Scottish town.

It was just a few days ago and I was in the street of my home town. It was cold and raining. The Christmas lights had been switched on by a local celebrity. The Mall and the shops were alive with ‘Jingle Bell Time’ and ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’. Reminders to order your turkey and not to forget your Christmas puddings, mince pies and so much more, covered all available space. Outside, gazing in to the ‘out of reach’ brightly lit shops and decorated windows were three homeless people sitting on their cardboard box beds, coffee cups strategically placed nearby. Innocent of coffee and perhaps containing a few pennies? Forgive me if I spoil your Christmas.

I got home and wrote the following:

“He had been sitting by the pathetic fire for hours, hands nearly touching the feeble flames as he tried to warm. His wet clothing spread around, drying, perhaps. He couldn’t care less. He has no idea where he is. The date is insignificant. He has other things on his mind and solitude is his only companion. He wants it like that. He has no space for twinkling lights, endless adverts designed to create a need for meaningless objects, conceived to squeeze the last penny from anxious parents, already in the bank’s debt to a tune that will still be playing when the bells start ringing again. With these thoughts he drifts off to an unsettled sleep.

December had happened along as usual, heralding the first winter snows, and as the year hurtled to its conclusion, he is aware of his wee ones getting more and more excited and starting to count the number of sleeps until the big day, the best day of the year. He watches them through his own tears, he knows it is hopeless. How can he let his wee ones down, again. How can he sit in the dark with nothing to wrap in colourful paper, then look at their crumpled faces, their tear filled eyes.

He struggles to put food on the table on an ordinary day. He knows he is responsible? He is exhausted and without hope.

Then he breaks and like Captain Oates, he walks off into the night, into the unknown and the cold. No plan to return. It will be better like that.

He walks and walks till his feet hurt, and he longs for food, but he keeps walking, until his feet get even sorer and the prospect of a night under a hedge, or if lucky a barn, beckons. He forces himself on and tears fill his eyes. Going back is not an option. With him out of the picture, food will get to his children, someone will fill the void and manage where he had failed. On he aimlessly walks into the dark, into the freezing snow.

Then out of the gloaming, a dark shape emerges, an old building. The snow scoured from the top by the wind, exposing a rusty tin roof that probably had been green at one time. He finds a door but has no expectations it will breach as he shoves against its resistance. Then in a rattling kind of way, scraping the floor, it unenthusiastically creaks open and he pushes inside.

The unenthusiastic door

Once inside a sparked match reveals an old fashioned stone walled building. A few partially burned candles and two empty liquor bottles lie discarded amongst a few scraps of timber near an ancient open fireplace. He is not its first visitant. It is cold, dry, and mercifully out of the freezing wind.

And that is how he came to be huddled alone and cold by a shilpit fire, on the eve of the day of days, possessed by a deep melancholy and without hope, until exhaustion overtakes him and he slips into an unsettled sleep.

He has no idea how long he had slumbered when a noise awakes him. He is quickly alert and stares into the pitch black in the direction of the noise. Nothing. He holds his breath. Silence. His eyes become accustomed to the blackness, assisted by the a feeble orange glow from the dying embers. Still nothing. But it was not nothing.

He is now wide awake, his senses acute. He keeps staring. Then the faintest shuffling sound. He stares towards the noise. A dark shape emerges from the darkest corner of the room into the pale glow and crouches. His heart nearly stops. A few feet away, staring directly at him, unspeaking, a sinister glint in his eyes, is a figure shrouded in a black cloak, phantom like, menacing. A steely stare transfixes our man for what seemed like an eternity. Then a deep, calm, careful voice, in an unfamiliar dialect, as though not his own language, speaks, ‘why are you here?’

‘I do not know where I am,’ his stuttering reply.

The steely voice continues, ‘On this night of nights, follow me,’ as he sweeps out into the freezing night.

He meekly follows. The storm has passed and the clouds have rolled away to reveal the light of a full moon. With arm raised, finger extended, pointing skyward, an almost disembodied voice disgorged from the plaided figure, ‘Look up at yon creamy smear across the sky. That is the Milky Way, our galaxy. More than a billion stars. Gaze on them and wonder.’

The raised arm moves on, ‘do you see that distorted ‘W’ shaped group of stars, that is Cassiopeia. Look straight out from the largest, sharpest point. See that fingerprint like smudge, that is Andromeda, our nearest neighbouring Galaxy.’

Our man gazed up, powerless to do otherwise. He had never looked up at these things before. He had never given the heavens and their wonders a single thought.

The indicating finger moved on and the voice continued, ‘that flashing light, see it, moving across from the right, that is the Space Lab, a sign of hope. Do you remember Christa McAuliffe, who died when space shuttle ‘Challenger’ exploded in front of her own children. She was a civilian, a school teacher and she was carrying the dreams of millions of children that day.Those dreams did not die with her and hope continues. And over there, that is the constellation of Orion, the Hunter. The Sumerians, founders of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the oldest civilisations and perhaps the founders of modern society, had a different name, they called it, URU AN-NA, meaning, light of heaven. A metaphor for hope. The Hunter has gazed down on earth for many millions of years and has always watched over us. Lift your head, open your eyes, look beyond yourself. There is always hope.’

Constellation Orion - The Hunter, or shall we call it URU AN-NA

He gazed at Orion in wonder. He had never heard any of this before and something was stirring within him, a feeling he struggled to quantify, but it felt like a new optimism. He needed to be home. When he looked back the plaided figure had vanished. Leaving not even a footprint in the snow. A strange tobacco smell lingered. The plaided one’s last words echoed round his head, ‘There is always hope.’

He hurried back inside, donned his drying coat, hefted his knapsack over his shoulder and set out into the moonlit night, guided by a new hope and the Hunter. He was a long way from home, but his step was light. He had to get there before morning. After hours he saw his cottage, the moon was nearly gone and Orion had moved away to his right, but was still watching over him. It was in the early hours of Christmas morning when he reached home.

In the window, silhouetted against the flickering candle light, were two small faces, staring out into the dark. Their eyes filled with hope.

He opened the door and stepped inside to be met by a huge embrace from his tearful, grinning wife. Then he was overwhelmed by a flurry of cuddles and kisses, ‘Daddy, you’ve come back. This is the best Christmas ever, we love you.’

At that point he realises, it is not about presents, it is not about tantalising adverts or television films or even brightly coloured Santa Clauses, it is about something else, something we have forgotten and in many ways been indoctrinated into forgetting. It is about family, the love of your family, your loved ones, whoever they are. It is about hopefulness, it is about belief in good. On opening his knapsack he found two Christmas puddings. As he took them out he puzzled, where did they come from? There was more, something was stuffed at the bottom. He rummaged further and pulled out two cuddly teddy bears, one with a red ribbon and one with a blue ribbon.

The gifts

His wife looked in astonishment and asked, where did you get them?

He turned his head and gazed out of the window. URU AN-NA was slowly dipping out of the night sky, and he watched in silence for a moment before replying, almost in a whisper;

‘The Light of Heaven’. “