Before I began working on the third book in the series, The Yuletide Factor, I spent much time considering how the previous ones were processed by individual readers and groups and how I might better facilitate these activities moving forward. It became clear to me that the nature and style of the books I was writing were lending themselves to pauses for emotional and spiritual reflection and lively discussion: story-driven, with equal parts sentimentality, social commentary, history, and pop culture, while ultimately asking, If there is a loving God, where is He in all of this?
By this point in my journey, I had also written and illustrated my first two children’s books—The Cardboard Shack Beneath the Bridge: Helping Children Understand Homelessness and It’s Hard Not to Stare: Helping Children Understand Disabilities—and included discussion guides for parents and educators as parts of those books. The feedback around that was, and is, very positive and encouraging.
Taking all these things into account, I became excited about the notion of creating a special complementary component to this book. Something that might be used to help readers unpack thoughts and emotions, whether alone, with a friend, or as part of a group if they choose to.
At the same time, I was quite sure it would be best to bring someone else on board to make it so. As I state in the prologue of this book, “I wanted to be sure that things ultimately turn back to you, the reader, and wanted to have someone else bring a fresh voice to guide things accordingly.”
It is by no means “too much” that I have boasted about Anne Brandner’s contribution to The Yuletide Factor in both the author’s acknowledgement and the prologue of this book. Should you choose to receive her comments and questions for personal reflection or use them for group discussion, I am confident you will find her warm tone and insights very meaningful in the material that accompanies each chapter.
Anne and I, and all the contributors to this book, share a sincere hope and heartfelt prayer that you, dear readers, would be blessed, esteemed and encouraged by what you find in these pages and where your own reflections and discussions lead you.
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Anne Brandner has worked in the field of international religious freedom and human rights for nearly 15 years. After completing an internship with the International Justice Mission in Washington, DC, in 2001, Anne earned her MA in political science, where she examined the pursuit of justice and reconciliation after the Rwandan genocide. It was during that time that Anne developed a deep and lasting interest in the value of apology, forgiveness and reconciliation in the wake of conflict and mass atrocities. Anne has worked in a number of policy and advocacy roles, engaging on issues including extreme poverty, religious persecution and refugee protection. Most recently, Anne worked as director of policy and international relations for a Toronto-based foundation and served on the international leadership team of the Religious Liberty Partnership. Anne’s work has taken her around the world, from refugee camps on the Eritrea-Ethiopia border to the US State Department, from the streets of Hong Kong to the United Nations Human Rights Council. With an undergraduate degree in communications, Anne currently works as a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Paul, and their awesome kids.
Prologue: Snow Globe
It’s a wonder that most of us never give up on covering our messes, hiding our foibles and mitigating our mistakes. It’s an exhausting path to choose over a lifetime, yet it is the path most chosen.
When I was a little boy, I knocked an expensive snow globe off a shelf in a department store, unbeknownst to my busy mom, several aisles away, who had told me only moments before not to touch it. It cracked wide open, and one by one, miniature villagers in scarves and mittens, tobogganers and ice-skaters poured out at my feet. In a panic I booted the shattered globe beneath the bottom shelf and then awkwardly worked to kick the tiny townspeople likewise into the shadows. It was a frantic few seconds. Leaving nothing more than a glittery puddle on the floor as poor wintery evidence, I ran to the end of the aisle, frantic to escape the predicament rather than have to explain it. The timing could not have been tighter—I literally bumped into my mom as she turned back to find me. She took my hand and insisted I not wander off again. As I was tugged away, I took one last look back, still anxious that my little-boy crime would be revealed. All looked good but for one little townsman lying face down far from the spill. He had escaped my galoshes.
We spent quite some time in that store after my cover-up, while my mom completed her shopping and paid at the till. All the while, all I could think about was that tiny little man lying in the ornament aisle waiting to implicate me by his mere presence. When guilt was my greatest concern, he was all I could think of. A lot of emotional energy and headspace wasted on fear and self. The very way many of us live our entire lives. Interestingly enough, the moment we left the store and I didn’t need to contend with him, I didn’t give him—or my misdemeanor—a second worried thought.
Snow globes are a strange treasure. One can control the speed of the swirling elements, but the characters ultimately remain unfazed. If only real life was like that.
A downtown Toronto blast of winter can be an all-sorts experience. And when icy wind chills meet thick moisture off Lake Ontario and swirl through the tunnel of skyscrapers in the financial district, ice pellets detonate like buckshot. The giant snow globe swirls ferociously, but those inside it are anything but unfazed. There’s simply no way to survive an ice storm but face down. Like a lost miniature villager awaiting a little boy’s boot.
It was in this battlefield of weather that I nearly stumbled over a forty-something-year-old man named Jim. Homeless and alone, he was ill-equipped for the storm’s assault and unconcerned by its consequence. No hat, no gloves, and covered in a frosty glaze of ice.
I like to think I’d have stopped for him regardless of the season, but I felt overwhelmingly compelled to do so because it was just days prior to Christmas. I sat on my heels at his side and offered him five bucks for a muffin and coffee and the validation of customer status that leery inner-city coffee shop staff often require. A bite to eat and a few minutes of escape from the squall. But he did not reach for the money. He simply looked at me sideways and began talking, as though we were commiserating friends, midway through a lengthy conversation.
“Y’know, it’s not the freezing cold, or the hunger…
“It’s not even wondering where I’ll sleep tonight, or being afraid...”
He paused, tilted his face into the bullets of ice, and continued.
“It’s having no one be proud of me that I can’t bear.”
His head dropped, and he began weeping.
I stayed, and we visited for another fifteen minutes, until we were both enshrined in ice. Finally, he stood when I did. I offered him the five dollars again, and he accepted it. Then I walked north with the wind at my back, and he walked south, directly into the storm.
How metaphoric.
Since that day, I have not engaged or passed by a single homeless person and not wondered where their longing truly lies. If their bellies hunger for food more than their spirits long for hope. If their bodies long for rest more than their minds long for peace. If their hearts long for anything at all more than to have someone be proud of them.
While I received the overwhelming gift of his unconditional transparency found in a few real-time minutes of his story, the gifts Jim received from me were fifteen minutes of a stranger’s ear and not even enough money to buy a cheap lunch. While I would never