Maybe?

(By Michael O'Brien)

“Suppose you live in a small town in the hill country, far from the big cities. And suppose that just down the road from you there lives a quiet sort of family about whom there isn’t anything outstanding, except that they are devoted to each other and are very devout in the practice of their faith. The dad is a carpenter who makes furniture in his shop beside their small house. The mother is a ‘home-maker,’ a lovely person really. Their ten-year-old son is a polite sort of lad, helps his dad in the shop, is serious by nature, never says much but is ever ready to smile at the drop of a hat. You meet him sometimes while walking along the country road or tromping through the bush; you turn a corner or step over a log and there he is kneeling beside a pond watching a beaver build a dam, or there he is gazing up into a tree branch listening to newborn robins chirping in their nest. That’s him—just listening, just looking. He notices you, smiles, bows a little, then seems to gaze at you as if you were as wonderful (wonder-full) as the world. He’s not shy, just quiet. Like his father, he carves small wooden toys as gifts for the other children in the neighbourhood. There’s something special about him, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

Suppose the mother of that family is busy baking cakes one day in preparation for a feast day. Suppose she asks your wife if she can borrow a dozen eggs and a cup of sugar. Your wife asks you to drop it off on the way to the local supermarket. You do. The mother of that family invites you in for a cup of tea. You accept. You go in and sit at their hand-hewn pine table in the kitchen. Everything inside their house is simple—well-made but humble. The atmosphere is full of peace. You listen to the sound of two hammers tapping away in the workshop next door. The mother serves you tea and a plate of buttered bread. Like her husband and child, she is a quiet person, never says much. But you don’t feel uncomfortable in her silence because it’s as if she’s always speaking—speaking with her eyes, her smile, her presence. Without being told, you know that you are welcome. You are at home.

You sip the tea and nibble the bread as you observe her attentiveness to every detail in the making of the cakes. You can see that she wants it to be right.

‘You’re making cakes?’ you ask, knowing the answer.

She nods and smiles—the smile going deep into your heart. There’s no smile like it in the world, at least not that you’ve encountered.

You know that sometime soon you will find a surprise package on your doorstep, or maybe it will be delivered by the lady’s son, with a smile and a look. The package will contain a cake and probably a small wooden bird.

All of the above is imagination, of course. But it might have happened. You might have been there. And maybe, in a sense, you have been there but didn’t recognize it.”

~Michael O’Brien (from Waiting: Stories for Advent)