Sun Sash: 2012

December 25 or January 6? A short explanation
Read or Listen to "The Gift of the Magi" by O'Henry

The Gift of the Magi by O'Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Sun Sash - 5 Golden Rings (#90)

Five Golden Rings

"If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.

When you wish upon a star, as dreamers do."

~Jiminy Cricket (Pinocchio)

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Friday, December 28, 2012

Sun Sash - 4 Calling Birds (#89)

Four Calling Birds

“Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas?

You know… the birth of Santa.”

~Bart Simpson

Listen to the latest Next Step
Scraping off Barnacles for the New Year
Next Step #238: Information deliverance shift: videos, art, free-flow, spooky elements, to the written version - the documentation and articulation of the Message. Little Vartan's question - can you get to heaven without dying? The Psalm - "Lord if you open my lips, I will sing Your praise" or thunderbolts from up on high? Watching "Les Miserables" on the Christmas Day. Revelation of homosexuality and the Church by a senior Armenian clergyman. Scraping off the barnacles reveals a Ship - and finding the VESSEL beneath - it'll take you on a ride to beyond!
Janine's blog: http://dailyexegesis.blogspot.com/
Compass #20 with Archbishop Vatche
Sun Sash - www.sunsash.blogspot.com
Song: Auld Lang Syne by Kenny G
Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for epostle.net
Look for The Next Step on blubrry.com
Now on Stitcher Radio!
Listen right on the website: http://epostle.net/#nextstep

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Sun Sash - 3 French Hens (#88)

3 French Hens

Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance.

To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity.

To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

~Oren Arnold

Sun Sash is on a 12 day journey through the days of Christmas. Still looking for that perfect gift? You got 363 days of shopping left... or you've got right now, Oren Arnold provides a great answer to your shopping needs.
Look for a new "Next Step" later today at epostle.net

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Sun Sash - 2 Turtle Doves (#87)

Two Turtle Doves

Christmas time... the only time ... in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore... though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it.

~ Fred (Scrooge's nephew - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

You caught me at being nice. The original selection for today was Scrooge's definition of Christmas, as a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets." So you got the answer instead.

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Sun Sash - Christmas (#86)

Christmas

Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas

reflected in the eyes of a child.

~William Saroyan

...An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. ~Matthew 1

Finding the strength to celebrate Christmas after the Newtown tragedy is the topic of this week's Next Step (#237)

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Monday, December 24, 2012

Sun Sash - Christmas Eve (#85)

Christmas Eve

The only real blind person at Christmas-time

is he who has not Christmas in his heart.

~Helen Keller

Christmas Eve Prayer
Loving God, Help us remember the birth of Jesus,
that we may share in the song of the angels,
the gladness of the shepherds,
and worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate
and open the door of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings,
and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children,
and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts,
forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake.
Amen.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

Follow Santa's journey tonight: http://www.noradsanta.org/

Where to find...

InHisShoes.org

Broadcasts: Epostle.net

Forgiveness: 7x77.org

Armodoxy: armodoxy.blogspot.com

Video Instruction: In Step w/Christ

Weekly Newsletter - The Key

Facebook : St. Peter Armenian Church

St. Peter Armenian Church & Youth Ministries

632 W. Stocker St.

Glendale, CA 91202

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Sun Sash - Solstice x3 (#84)

Solstice x3

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men.” ~Jesus

So here's the deal. Jesus changes the players. From "I am the Light" he shifts it to YOU. The Solstice is the beginning point of light. Or an end. The Sun Sashes of the last four days have pointed to the the beginning and end of the cycle. As you can see it's circular. It's about light. -vkms

A special Solstice Edition of the Next Step - available at www.epostle.net
Next Step #237: "The Christmas/Solstice Special" Finding the courage to celebrate Christmas after the Sandy Hook (Newtown) Shooting. Ringing the Bells of Etchmiadzin - the new Bethlehem: Fr. Vazken celebrates the Solstice and life after the end of the Mayan Calendar. Obama's mention of Jesus comes after the silence of the clergy. A Christian response to evil and the challenge to walk In His Shoes as Christ did. The date of Christmas that is beyond the Jan 6/Dec 25 debate - in an answer given by St. Gregory the Illuminator.

Links to topics in today's show:

In His Shoes.org

Karekin I on Etchmiadzin & Bethlehem

Fr. Vazken's Sermon on Shooting

10 Girls Killed in Afghanistan

President Obama at Sandy Hook Interfaith Service

Today is the Solstice

Jethro Tull Christmas Album

SunSash.blogspot.com

Song: The Light by Gor Mkhitarian

Produced by Suzie Shatarevyan for epostle.net

Look for The Next Step on blubrry.com