Our Town: Thinking of Christmas Our Town: Thinking of Christmas (December 21, 2005)

by Don Kazak

Many people will get up on Sunday, open the presents under the tree and put on Sunday-best clothes to go to church.

For a day, at least, the commercialization of the holiday falls away, and we may think of the people we are trying to be.

I always go back to Chicago for Christmas, because that is where I am from, and have family there.

The holiday feels muted with the war in Iraq dragging on, a persistent echo in the background of the holiday. I read the names each morning of the soldiers who have died. It's hard to think of their families and their pain.

The war that we were told was won two years ago has turned into a mess, with echoes of Vietnam growing stronger.

And the war has become personal. My oldest grand niece has a happy baby boy who makes us all smile. The boy's father is in the Army, serving in Iraq.

He has a relatively safe job, servicing the computers on helicopters. But no job is safe in Iraq. That makes me think differently about a conflict half a world away, where suicide bombers blow themselves and others up.

We seem to be a left-leaning bunch of folks in Palo Alto, which reader Gene Micek keeps reminding me of in his e-mails. He served in Korea and is an avid supporter of the government's policies.

I don't argue with him because he fought for this country and has earned the right to say anything he wants to say. Christmas for the troops in Iraq will probably be difficult, as it probably was for him, long ago.

Religion usually doesn't play a big role in Palo Alto, but the mainstream Protestant churches have been our moral-based social consciences over the years, a tradition that has deep antecedents.

All Saints Episcopal and First Presbyterian have had their congregations out in front of many issues that the rest of us should care more about but are too busy with our lives to stop to think about.

Those are the two churches that generated the idea for the Opportunity Center, now being built. It will be a drop-in center for the homeless and have low-cost apartments for people trying to re-enter a more normal life, giving them some dignity along with counseling, services, shelter and hope.

The Opportunity Center will never solve the homeless problem because many homeless people have alcohol, substance abuse or mental health problems. But some of the homeless will be helped, and their lives will be enriched.

Seeing the Opportunity Center being built isn't just a question of watching the building slowly come to fruition. It's a mark of faith that this community has for others.

It's an old cliché that Christmas is just one day a year, and we should all find that kindness in our hearts throughout the year. Some people do.

I admire those who selflessly work to make the lives of others better. Somewhere along the line, they must have gotten a bigger humanity gene than the rest of us.

But it is soon to be Christmas, a time for warm memories.

I remember walking to church in my Chicago neighborhood for Midnight Mass one Christmas Eve.

The snow was gently falling and the night seemed magical. It was a time of innocence for me, but the sentiments are still the right ones.

We were sitting in the church, lit just by candles, when the sound of the children attending the church's elementary school singing "Adeste Fideles" ("O Come All Ye Faithful") reached us from outside, the song building and growing as the children walked into the church, holding candles.

The song is the most majestic of all Christmas carols and it was riveting to hear it start faintly from outside the church and then burst into it, the smallest children entering first and the singing growing deeper as the older kids entered.

We should all be that young and innocent again, and find a way to sing as sweetly.

Don Kazak is a senior staff writer. He can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.

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