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Chapter 2: Nearly There

Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses.

I think it’s worth repeating.

Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses.

Think of all the books you’ve spent money on. Think of all the books you’ve borrowed. Think of all the books you were required to read in school. Think of all the books you’ve thumbed through, implied you’ve read, and truly want to read. Think of all the books you’ve ever heard about.

Is Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses on any of those lists?

I guessed not.

But don’t laugh. We might have all missed out on a treasure without it.

Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses is a Lutheran Sunday school songbook that was published by James R. Murray in 1887. Massachusetts born Murray was an army musician in the American Civil War who later became a piano teacher and, later still, a music publisher. He was also the one person with the wherewithal to include the song “Away in a Manger” among a selection of dainty songs for little lads and lasses, ultimately casting it into the North American mainstream. Likewise, Murray was the composer of one of the two popular melodies that accompany the song to this day.

Four hundred years prior, Martin Luther was busy forging a legacy as one of the most influential figures in Christian history, with a resumé that included Augustinian monk, ordained priest, scholar, professor, Bible translator and Protestant reformer. With more than enough adoration and esteem attached to his not-so-dainty legacy, a great many wanted to continuously add to it. Murray was among the many who were convinced that Luther had written “Away in a Manger” and printed this note alongside the lyrics and the subtitle “Luther’s Cradle Song” in his Sunday school songbook: “Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their children.”

Whether Luther did or did not write the lyrics for stanzas one and two will forever remain an earthly mystery. What is certain is that he did not write the third, and I would suggest most touching, verse.

However, credit for that is just as fuzzy. Some say it goes to an Iowa farm boy turned prolific hymn writer named Charles H. Gabriel. Gabriel, like Murray before him, also subscribed to the notion that Martin Luther had written the original double-stanza children’s song, and it’s told that he penned and added his own third verse in the 1892 publication Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs. Others insist that John T. McFarland wrote it in less than an hour when he was the Methodist Episcopal Church’s secretary of the board of Sunday schools in New York City.

Note to self: Sign everything.

Well, whoever wrote it, and however it got there, I sure am glad!

While “Away in a Manger” is not my favourite of all Christmas carols, the first line of the third verse is my favourite of all Christmas carol lines. There is a deep sentiment wrapped up in a prayer that I believe exposes the profound fullness of the Christmas story.

“Be near me, Lord Jesus.”

I was nervous the first few times I was invited to be Santa Claus beyond my friends’ backyards. It felt like a mighty big leap to take, transitioning from a silly voiceless outdoor mystery to an indoor face-to-face icon. And I couldn’t have seen the whole hospital thing coming in my wildest dreams. The truth is, I think the Claus thing would have come to a screeching halt for me on my first hospital visit if it hadn’t been for an adorable little girl, with a cherub face and a little fountain of hair atop her head, named Shandi.

It had been arranged that I would do a room-by-room visit in a Toronto hospital for the children who were not well enough to leave and would be spending Christmas there. Age-appropriate gifts had been arranged by the hospital staff, and all I had to do was quietly move between rooms with a few hushed ho-ho-hos and surprise each child with a preselected and wrapped gift from my bag. To go through the motions should have been a cakewalk. But it wasn’t.

While it is heart-rending to see children hooked up to apparatuses and connected to machines at any time, it’s heartbreaking to see it on Christmas Eve. Where one feels helpless looking at their sweet faces as a mere mortal, one feels ashamed as a would-be magical Claus. Each child was elated to see me, even if a number of them were forced to show it in shallow breaths. I just played the rookie bluff as best I could. But at every turn I was weak in the knees and certain I was in way over my head. I didn’t know any of their diagnoses or conditions. I just knew that little lads and lasses aren’t meant to be hooked up to beeping machines with rubber tubes on Christmas Eve.

And that was just the kids. Of course, the children were flanked by their adoring parents. I longed to make eye contact with them, but at every attempt longer than a few seconds I began to lose my footing as anything in the jolly category. Tears rolled down mommy and daddy faces as their children’s little hands stretched forward for toys that they should have been opening at home. In the end, I was forced to play the whole thing much colder than I should have, just so nobody would have to deal with the disappointment of a sad Santa.

Nurses! God bless nurses! Every nurse, in every land! God bless you!

They were extraordinary. I am not sure if nurses in hospitals are, or were, assigned Christmas Eve shifts or volunteer for them, but either way, I do know that when they are actually on them they are pulling double duty, also performing as saints. Watching the nurses in action, and being inspired by them, was one of my saving graces.

The other one was Shandi.

Shandi couldn’t have been older than five. She was the first child in the ward that I met. That’s because she was the only child not in her room. She was out at the nurses’ station, among the staff. Among the saints.

Nobody told me why Shandi was there. And I didn’t ask. What was clear was that no parents, no family at all, were there to be with her on Christmas Eve.

And so, hers was the first gift to go. Unaware of what was inside of the wrapping I placed it in her tiny hands. She held it sweetly but didn’t attempt to open it, as though she didn’t know what it was or that it was meant for her.

Perplexed, I looked at one of the nurses watching over her. Shandi turned to her as well and handed it to her as though it was a mistake that she’d received it. The nurse took it and gently said, “Okay, we’ll open this a little later,” and set it on the duty counter.

Another teary-eyed nurse jumped in and began to guide me to the first room. I had turned and begun to follow her when I felt a little tug on my finger. Little Shandi had decided she was coming with me.

She held my white-gloved index finger inside her tiny curled fist as we walked to the first room. As soon as I stepped in, she let go. It was a heart-melting start to the whole gig, and more than a bit overwhelming. I navigated my first room visit as best I could and said a merry goodbye. And when I reached the hallway, Shandi was waiting for me.

She reached out and took my finger, led me to the next room, and released. The nurses were as speechless as Saint Nick. Room to room, without saying a single word, Shandi guided Santa Claus by the finger across a complete floor of unwell children.

I reflect on Shandi every single Christmas. I have told my children this story countless times.

What is it a little sick girl with no family by her side knew that the rest of the world seems to miss?

I truly believe that she knew, and, I pray, still knows all these years later, that which matters most. That which soften hearts, lifts people up, brings people hope, and causes peace that passes understanding. For, ironically, it is the same stuff that keeps rookie Santas on their feet.

Nearness.

What is it we long for most from the precious few in our lives who are like oxygen to our souls? Nearness.

What is it that nourishes us, sustains us, fills us to full and heals us, when there are no words or actions to give or take from the ones we love and the ones we want to love us in return? Nearness.

What is it that restores hope, preserves dignity and turns isolation into belonging? Nearness.

What is it that brings light into the darkness and comforts us through our greatest fears? Nearness.

Countless scribes and scholars, preachers and teachers, have written, and will continue to write, for the rest of mortal time, about why God would send His Son as a tiny baby, to grow from a boy to a man, to be sacrificed on a cross and ultimately defeat death. Those pure of heart and led by the Spirit have been correct, and will continue to be correct, when they guide our intellect through Scripture and help shepherd our hearts through the great maze of faith. But on those days when words are somehow lost on us, when our good senses have malfunctioned, when loneliness and insecurity and uncertainty override the human condition, what is the one wordless thing we need most to be assured of?

His nearness.

That Jesus would come to us as a baby, that He would rebuke His disciples for undervaluing the presence of children, that He would later tell us that we need to become like children to enter His kingdom—could it then be any more wildly perfect that the ultimate shared prayer of longing for every human being who looks to Him would show up centuries later in a children’s Christmas carol?

“Be near me, Lord Jesus.”

Why do I think the Christmas story unfolded as it did?

So I, so we, would be assured of His nearness.

“Away in a Manger,” third verse:

Be near me, Lord Jesus

I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever,

And love me I pray.

Bless all the dear children

In Thy tender care

And fit us for heaven,

To live with Thee there.

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