Yours Truly Read online

  ‘There’s only one thing you lack.’

  ‘Oh?’ said the young man, now ready to accept some great words of wisdom.

  ‘Give up your celebrity,’ said Jesus. ‘Go and live among the poor. Do not appear on television ever again. Leave your publicists and your agents and your promoters behind. Give up all your fame and you will have treasure in heaven.’

  The celebrity stared at Jesus, utterly astonished. Jesus smiled with great tenderness at him and said, ‘When you have done all that, then come and follow me.’

  The crestfallen celebrity avoided his gaze. He shook his head. He walked away slowly, very sorrowfully, because he was extremely famous.

  The crowds followed him, and the reporters called out their questions, and the cameras flashed until the celebrity and his entourage had disappeared over the horizon.

  But Jesus was still watching, gazing after the young man for a very long time, with tears in his eyes.

  An Artist Tries to Create the World

  And the artist said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. The artist saw that the light was quite good, but not good enough, so she tried some different colours, but this made it even worse. This was the first day and she was very anxious, because she had a deadline.

  And the artist said, ‘Let there be a space above the waters’ and decided to call it ‘sky’. She worked very hard at this and, for a while, she thought it was good. But she came back to it hours later and realized that it was not nearly as good as she had thought. This was the second day and she was beginning to feel panic.

  And the artist said, ‘Let the dry ground appear’ and it was so. Only the dry ground looked far too like the sea and the sea looked like the dry ground, so she completely repainted it. This was the third day and she saw that everything was a disaster.

  On the next day, the artist painted the sun and the moon and the stars. And they looked really good, so she decided to paint a whole lot more, which spoilt everything. This was the fourth day and she was contemplating suicide.

  And the artist said, ‘Let’s have a lot of creatures flying around and swimming in the sea’ and some of these were not bad at all. They were actually quite good. This was the fifth day, but she really wanted to paint something much better and she couldn’t get the perfect image out of her mind, so she wiped out the whole world and started again.

  And on the sixth day, the artist said, ‘Let there be light, sky, land and sea, sun and moon and lots of creatures’ and she worked in a crazy hurry and the whole thing looked really good, until she realized it was all out of perspective. At this point, she began to drink heavily. Then she remembered that she hadn’t created any people yet and she quickly made a man and a woman, but she realized she was no good at human figures. She tried again and again and again, but each time she looked at them, they got worse and worse, so she decided that the whole world she had created was complete rubbish, she was no good as an artist and she would have to become a teacher.

  On the seventh day, she woke up with a very bad hangover and she had no rest at all, because she knew that she had to start all over again on Monday.

  The Christmas Letter

  Eleanor was a good woman. There was no doubting that. Everyone spoke well of her. She was happily married, with three grown-up children, seven grandchildren and a great many friends – and she was a pillar of the local church, always ready to help, always going the extra mile. Some people described her as a saint, but she brushed off such compliments, because she knew she had a long way to go before becoming a saint!

  What she didn’t know was quite how far she had to go, but she was about to learn.

  Eleanor sat down at the beginning of Advent to write her annual Christmas letter. At the top of the letter she placed a large colour photo of her family, all fifteen of them gathered at a family reunion. It was a perfect shot, with everyone smiling and waving and looking radiant in their beautiful clothes.

  She began her letter with a few words about Christmas being a time of peace and goodwill in the midst of a troubled world and wishing all her readers a very blessed time. She then said how grateful she was for her family and friends. ‘You all mean so much to me!!!’ she wrote, adding her trademark three exclamation marks. She then went on to talk about her life with her beloved husband, David, both now in contented ‘retirement’. She liked to put ‘retirement’ in inverted commas, because everyone knew that she and David were hardly retired!!! David, she explained, was running both the Men’s Group and the Alpha Group at the church, as well as organizing the Missionary Prayer Breakfast, and he was now also the loyal treasurer of the Local Outreach Committee. There was hardly any time for golf, which he enjoyed so much, but apparently he was improving his handicap nonetheless! She had perhaps taken on a little too much herself, with the Women’s Prayer Fellowship, Messy Church, a Lay Reader’s Course and becoming a special adviser to the Parent/Teacher Association at the local primary school. Her days as a primary headteacher were long past, but she loved this involvement very much. Her motto, she wrote, would always be ‘Education, Education, Education’.

  So ‘retirement’, she continued, was even less of a reality when it came to her own personal school of seven grandchildren!!! They all had such wonderful characters and needed a lot of love and time, she explained, adding small colour photos of each child as she went along. She then, as she did every year (because it would be awful to miss any of them out), said something encouraging and very complimentary about each of them. So, of course, there were the Suzuki violin lessons, the ballet awards, the swimming certificates, the incredible mountaineering adventures, the clarinet concerts, the scholarship to Cambridge . . . the list was almost embarrassingly long. The truth was, however, that she was very proud of them all and, although looking after the younger ones could be exhausting, or hosting a whole houseful of the entire family last Easter was overwhelming (particularly the quantity of chocolate on offer!!!), she was always grateful for them and was delighted by all the lovely photos they sent to her, which were displayed in every room in the house.

  Finally, Eleanor moved on to some of the spectacular holidays that she and David had enjoyed, and how they were enormously grateful to God for these marvellous experiences. She attached a photo of the two of them, looking very young and suntanned, on the deck of a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

  It’s true that she felt slightly guilty about the five holidays they had enjoyed, although she didn’t say this, and she reasoned with herself that they had both worked very hard indeed all their lives for this. But she was careful to put the holidays at the end of the letter, so they could be seen in the context of the tireless work for the church and the demands of family, and so everyone could easily understand why she always put ‘retirement’ in inverted commas.

  Finally, on a more sober and yet joyful note, she ended her Christmas letter, as she always did, with a verse from the Bible and a little homily of hope and joy in these very challenging times. In fact, she was just writing that verse about ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace’ when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned and was astonished to see a figure standing there, with the most beautiful and radiant face, gazing at her with great sadness.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, suddenly very afraid. The angel said nothing, but just took her by the hand.

  Before she could say a word, Eleanor was lifted from the floor and found herself flying with the angel across the roofs of the city, beneath a brilliant starlit sky. She clung to him for dear life, but he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Eleanor. I have been sent to you from the presence of the One who is compassionate, who is merciful, who is all-knowing and who understands all the secrets of the human heart.’

  Eleanor found little comfort in these words as her precious home and family vanished to a mere pinprick far below. She was flying in some strange dream-like world. Have I fallen into a coma? Have I died? Is my life over at last?!!! Eleanor wondered.

  The angel laugh
ed softly, as if knowing every thought. ‘Beloved daughter,’ he said, ‘your life is just beginning.’

  That was when they descended and she found herself gently carried through an open window into a small flat. There was a woman, who lived on her own. She had never married or had children. She was sitting, eating a frugal meal from a packet, beside an electric fire with a single bar.

  I know this person, thought Eleanor. She is my old friend from university. It’s Ruth! Oh, she seems so sad, so lonely!!! But Eleanor could not communicate with her old friend, who was completely unaware of her presence or of the burning light around the angel, who stood beside her with tears running down his face.

  ‘Ruth . . . Ruth . . . Are you all right?’ Eleanor’s words went unheard in that cold and dismal flat, and Ruth continued to stare at a small television, where a comedian was making jokes. But Ruth wasn’t laughing. There was an infinite weariness and sadness all around her.

  The angel gestured towards Ruth. ‘What do you see?’ he asked gently.

  Eleanor was now in tears. ‘I see my old friend Ruth . . . I write to her. I do keep in touch with her.’

  The angel looked at Eleanor and his eyes were piercing, bright flames burning her heart. ‘How do you write to her?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Eleanor hesitated as the deep truth dawned. ‘She is on my Christmas list.’

  ‘You send her that letter?’ asked the angel.

  Eleanor was flustered. ‘I . . . er . . . I always write a few handwritten lines at the top, saying, “I hope you are doing well and this comes with much love”, that sort of thing.’

  The angel was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Come on.’

  The next thing Eleanor knew, she was flying through the air again, until she landed in a garden. The moon was shining and she stood there outside some French doors, gazing into a beautiful sitting room. But on the sofa, a woman lay weeping and a man sat in a chair with his head in his hands.

  ‘Who are these people?’ asked the angel, gently. Eleanor went up to the doors, which swung open mysteriously. Neither of the two troubled figures looked up as she stepped into the room.

  ‘This is Wendy and this is Michael,’ Eleanor whispered, hardly daring to breathe their names.

  ‘What has happened to them?’ said the angel.

  ‘They, er . . . I believe they lost their baby.’

  ‘Ahh,’ the angel nodded, with such terrible sadness and compassion that Eleanor fell to the ground in anguish. Weeping inconsolably, she said:

  ‘They lost their only baby!!!’

  ‘Ohh, ohhh.’ Wendy hugged her knees and rocked herself again and again on the sofa. ‘Ohhh, my little one.’ Michael shook his head and clenched his fists until his knuckles were white. He was paralysed with grief and unable to walk over to Wendy and hold her.

  ‘Let me hold Wendy,’ cried Eleanor. ‘Let me hold her.’

  ‘Come now,’ said the angel and took her firmly by the hand.

  ‘I heard about the cot death and I did write to them,’ Eleanor blustered.

  ‘And now you are sending them this letter, at Christmas?’

  Tears were streaming down Eleanor’s face as they left and flew through the sky. One by one, they visited all the people on her list of two hundred. There were friends who had fallen on very hard times financially and could never afford a holiday, let alone five. There were friends who could never retire, even in inverted commas, because they were self-employed, struggled to survive and had no final salary pensions. There were friends who had children addicted to drugs, and others who had grandchildren who were severely disabled and would never win awards. There were friends who had lost their faith and for whom the trite little homily at the end of Eleanor’s Christmas letter inflamed their wounds and increased the bitterness in their souls.

  Eleanor could hardly bear one more vision of the harsh reality of human life at Christmas. She longed to love all these people, to plead for their forgiveness, to make a new start.

  ‘Not yet,’ said the angel. ‘One more visit to make.’

  Eleanor found herself flying with the angel over land and sea, in the darkness and through the mists of time. Slowly, through the unfurling clouds, came a bright and very beautiful star. The angel smiled at her gently, with the saddest and deepest gaze.

  ‘Are we . . . ?’ She hardly dared imagine where they were.

  ‘Bethlehem,’ said the angel softly, with immense reverence. They flew down, down, into the teeming world of a little town, over two thousand years ago. At last they came to a stable and the angel touched the barn doors, which opened slowly.

  Eleanor gazed in wonder, in hope and longing. Am I about to see the Christ-child myself? To kneel at the foot of the manger? Is this glory to be shared with me?

  As the barn doors opened wide and she stepped into the beautiful and tender scene, she was filled with horror, because sitting in the stable was not Mary, nor Joseph . . . nor the baby, nor the shepherds, nor the wise men.

  Eleanor was sitting there herself, beside her husband David. All around were her children and their spouses and her seven grandchildren, including the most recent newborn baby grandson, who lay in the manger. There was a beautiful light around them and they all had halos and were smiling. It was a perfect Christmas scene, with snow lying on the ground outside, the star shining brightly through a skylight high above.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked the angel.

  ‘I see . . .’ Eleanor hesitated. ‘I see . . .’ She could not bring herself to say the words, because it was all too terrible.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked the angel again, gently persistent.

  ‘I see . . . the Holy Family.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the angel, with tears. ‘I’m afraid you do.’

  There was a long silence as Eleanor gazed at herself and her beloved children and grandchildren, and she knew at last that she had been worshipping her own family, in her most secret shrine, in the deepest place of her heart.

  The angel took her by the hand. ‘Come.’

  His love was so deep and his compassion so full that she followed him, in floods of tears, wondering if this was now the very end of her life, and she was facing the final judgement, or if she was to be spared by some miracle of grace. It was true, she had been worshipping idols of her own making. Far from being a ‘saint’ she had followed a false religion, the worst kind of all: the religion of the self.

  The angel was leading her down a long dark tunnel and, as she stumbled through the darkness, she began to realize that very few of her children and grandchildren believed in God, but every single one of them believed passionately in the family. They had all been converted, from an early age, to an intense and passionate religion – a life-long devotion to the family, to themselves, the radiant glory of their own success, happiness, multiplication and survival. It was a tribal faith that could not endure any rival – above all, the presence of Christ himself at Christmas. That is why the Christmas card, which went with the letter, always had a photo of her own family.

  At that moment, Eleanor stumbled into a very dingy room, a hidden stable that was lit by a mysterious inner light. There, in the straw and the poverty, and the muck and the dirt, and surrounded by the poor and the lonely and the destitute and the emotionally shattered and the psychologically wounded and the desperately lonely people, of all ages and all races; there among the refugees of famine, war and faith, and the refugees from comfortable British churches who could no longer endure the self-satisfaction and self-love; there in the midst of the yearning and adoring crowds lay the Christ-child in the manger. Mary sat beside him and her gaze at Eleanor was so full of love, so full of kindness and pure sympathy, that Eleanor fell down and touched the feet of the tiny baby and wept for a long time.

  As she did so, it was as if all her sins were sliding away, disappearing, sucked into the blackness and the filth. The radiant inner light that shone from the baby and from Mary and from Joseph and from all the angels who had gathered there, b
egan to shine slowly, very gradually, deep within her heart.

  If she could have seen herself kneeling beside the baby, she would have seen a woman bent low with grief but burning with inner light and an imperishable beauty. She would, in fact, have seen a halo.

  The last words she heard from Mary were, ‘Would you like to hold the baby?’ And that was when she found herself back in her own home, with the question ringing in her ears and she found herself whispering, ‘Yes.’

  In the years to come, Eleanor became famous for her handwritten notes, for telephoning, texting, emailing, messaging and for visiting whenever she could, as many friends as possible, throughout the year. She always communicated personally, speaking with love and insight into each individual situation. And her home, which had been filled with over a hundred photos of her children and grandchildren, now had – alongside a few well-chosen shots of her own family – a hundred pictures of friends she loved and remembered in her prayers. As well as this, she developed a worrying habit of inviting lonely strangers, refugees, troubled teenagers and some awkward misfits from her local church into her home for wonderful hospitality. As a result, her husband David began to play a great deal more golf, which, in its own way, was a special blessing on his life because it gave him the rest and peace he had always needed.

  Eleanor considered her new experience, of generous loving and worship, a miracle. Privately, she thought of it as ‘holding the baby’.

  The truth was, she had discovered the secret of spending her time, throughout the year, being a living Christmas letter, touching countless longing hearts wherever she went.

  The Village Secret

  Many years ago, a man left his own village in the mountains to visit a town far away. When he got there after weeks of hard and dusty travelling, he quickly discovered that they had the most amazing Secret of Life. Before long, he came to understand the secret for himself and to make it his own. He was filled with excitement and he couldn’t wait to rush back and tell the people in his own village – but the guardians of the secret wouldn’t let him go.