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TSds being the issue nearest Christmas, I wish you, one and all MERRY CHRISTMAS HAPPY FISCAL YEAR At Christmastime, generally, I relate in this column my favor ite Christmas stories. There is one about the Santa Claus in a de partment store in Hattiesburg who was exhausted after a day of being jolly old St. Nick to the children brought in to see him. It was just a few days before Christmas, near closing time of the store, and some parent purchased a bicycle for his child. “Of course, said the father, “Santa Claus will put the bike in the car for us.” Well, good old jolly St. Nick had no choice. While approaching the door to the street, he was pushed and battered about awfully; finally, at the door, with shoppers going in and out, Santa Claus got the bike iammed in edgewise and took a terrible pounding. He was exhausted, but more than that, he was exasperated. Unable to get the bike out the door immediately, he exclaimed loudly, so that all could hear: “I’ll be so damned glad when Christmas is over I won’t know what to do.” The manager, standing nearby, and having heard jolly old St. Nick, arranged for his Christmas to be over then and there. My other favorite Christmas story has to do with a little girl. She was attending a presentation of the manger scene in church with her father. Several times those in the play looked into the crib at the new born baby. The'little girl, in such wide-eyed innocence, asked her father loudly, “Daddy, who’s in the basket?” “Shhhh,” he said, “that’s the little Lord Jesus.” “My goodness,” the child said in reply, “what’s He doing in Hattiesburg?” This year I don’t think I’ll tell those two stories. I saw two editorials from the Tulsa Tribune which, I think, point up the spiiit of Christ and the season very well indeed. To me, a frustrated Baptist preacher, the stories below show and give meaning to what Christianity should mean to those who claim to be Christians—acts and deeds instead of Sunday morning lip service. The first of the Tulsa Tribune’s comments followed the tornado | in Oklahoma earlier this year. It is entitled, BROTHER’S KEEPERS: I Our jaded, cynical society needs occasional demonstrations of how nure Christianity works. Such an example has been given Oklahomans by members of the Mennonite churches who have dropped their own duties and traveled considerable distances to tackle the tornado rubbish at Sapulpa and Wilburton. Mennonite customs—the beards, the plain dress, the distaste of machinery—may seem queer to most of us. But the spectacle of citizens traveling long distances to participate in the messy, difficult business of cleaning up after a disaster, with no thought of reward or attempt at self-glorification, is inspiring. The Tribune learned of the Mennonite contribution only after awed Sapulpans called us. No Mennonite press agent had been around. There was no attempt to give a dime’s worth of charity in return for a dollar’s worth of publicity. The second story from the editorial page of the Tulsa Tribune was of recent date, and is entitled, “WAS THIS YOU?” Herewith: Was this you? If it was, all we know about you is that you are a well-dressed, responsible-appearing businessman and that you were in the vicinity of Third and Main the other afternoon. Oh, yes we know one other fact about you, but that can wait for a moment. .. .. ' «I first noticed .the man,” said a lady who phoned us about you. • (Continued On Page 2) A BOOK REVIEW LOVE IN A LONDON FLAT, by Victor Jones. Lyle Stuart, New York, c. 1963. 159 pp. $3.50. The question arises, “What can ' a non-hero do against stark re ality?’ Peter Copeman is ineffectual. ! He struggles to survive as a. schoolmaster, only to find that he j never has a pair of trousers to j wear to a party because the boys at school have splattered ink on him. However, he gets to the party anyway—not through resourceful ness, but through the generosity of a roommate, whose trousers he borrows. Once he is at the party, there seems to be hope: he meets Paula. He falls in love with her. But naturally, he does not know how to let her know it. Time catches up with Paula, and she marries her boss—fiasco No. 1. A determined blonde, having failed to capture Copeman’s roommate, finds Copeman an easier victim. He winds up a miserable, domi nated husband—fiasco No. 2. His problems multiply. He meets Paula afiain, his wife says she is pregnant, there is some questior about his position at school (for which he gets further humiliation, (Continued on Page 4) THE EMPTY PEW by W. Jene Miller She said to me, “As it gets nearer Christmas, put your rose colored glasses on.” So, I did. My rose-colored glasses enabled me to see only the good. It was a wonderful experience. I saw parents who had started making payments a long time ago on presents for their children. I saw young people working to earn money to buy presents for their , parents. I saw men with bad colds and fever and aching in their muscles go to work to earn money so that their families would have happy Christmases. I saw women who were very tired going from store to store to buy that one last nice little gift to make someone happier. I saw business men taking money that they needed for taxes to give their hard-working em ployees a Christmas bonu* to make their lives a little gayer. I saw clerks putting out extra effort to be nice to some tired customer who was trying to be argumentative. I saw busy people stop and hold doors open for someone laden with packages. I saw children and ; adults mailing gifts to those who were far from them at this time of the year. I heard people talk about “ Christmas Cheer” and “Peace on Earth” and even some of them mentioned “Good will to men”. I heard singing. I heard laughter. I often heard, “Merry Christmas”! My, there is so much goodness (Continued On Page 4) Some People Never Learn!— Journal Of A Trip South by John Howard Griffin SUNDAY Midnight. I make these notes in Father’s little front-room office at the Catholic rectory. A sense of uneasiness fills this house. Why? Because, I, a white Catholic, am ' visiting a priest? No, that would be all right. But this priest is a Negro—and this is the Old South, and a white man does not stay in ! the home of a Negro, even the home of a Negro priest. Father has retired, but some thing painful, almost nightmarish, keeps me awake. We expect the phone to ring at any moment with a Klan call. Do they know yet? I am aware of a pricking fear whenever I stand before a window. Outside, in the darkness, the Negro section of this town sur rounds us. Dogs bark and oc casionally a rooster crows in the distance. The contradictions here tax the brain. Father’s parishioners have warned us to be cautious — and with good reason. The white racists would be outraged that a white man should spend the night in a Negro home—the home of a priest. T-his f 1 a uTi t s Southern traditions in this area. And yet if they caught me in this section of town visiting a Negro woman for immoral purposes, this would not affront them. This would be part of the “charm” of our Southern Way of Life. ine JSlluauuu atimca me agan* because there is no place where I can take the priest to dinner, no place where we can even stop to have a cup of coffee together. 1 receive my nourishment in the homes of Father’s friends. Only j there can we sit down to table together. They receive me gallant- j ly. The atmosphere of their homes j is full of hospitality—they speak easily and minimize the clanging dissonance of a white man in their homes. If things were nor mal, I would be merely a co religionist accompanying a priest friend to eat with them. But things are not normal. I learned this evening that a host on a former occasion slept with his shotgun by his bed after we had left. Later, the Klan tele phoned to warn him they were “watching his every move.” This very Klan shouts constant ly about freedom, about the white man’s right to freedom of association. But I am white and I what freedom do I have here? They do not even want me to , associate with a Negro priest. I j know that I jeopardize the safety of any Negro who receives me into his home. And yet they re ceive me graciously. Tonight, Father tactfully waited until almost dark to drive me to a home ten miles out of town. We entered this home only after it had become full night so that no one could see us. Once inside, our hosts put us at ease. But we were aware of our plight, the unspeak able plight in this land of the free: the need for secrecy because Negro and white Catholics were sitting down with a priest to take ood. How symbolic, almost Eucharistic, this act of eating to gether becomes in such an “under ground” context. The Catacombs —we knew something of that. We talked. We talked about the problems of Negro Catholics in a rigidly segregated area. Our host spoke without bitterness. Where did his family attend church? “In Father’s church,” he said as though surprised that I should even ask such a question. “But don’t you have a Catholic Church in this town?” I asked. “Yes.” “Then you’re in this parish, not Father’s.” I said. “It doesn’t work that way here,” he said. “We go to the Negro Church—it’s understood.” “Do you mean you have to go all that distance to Mass when you have a Catholic Church right here?” “We do that, yes,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “To keep the peace . . . out of love for the Church,” he said simply. “What would happen if you attended Mass here?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be appreciated at all. We would probably be asked to leave.” “Not by the priest, surely?” “No — the priest is all right. He has told us to call on him if ever we need help. No, the parishion ers would not like it.” The conversation around this matter died. I realized that I was bringing up a subject that could not then be resolved. And yet these were by no means “Uncle Toms.” They were Catho lics who realized fully the scandal of this kind of religious segre gation, who suffered from it; but they had faith that this sort of thing had to right itself and would most certainly right itself. Floorboards in this rectory creak with every footstep I take. I turn on the radio and find a M o z a r t Divertimento. It bounces from the walls of this room, setting a tone of such sanity, such health and charity that the surrounding night’s menace appears profoundly obscene by contrast. But the menace is there to taint everything. It is understood clearly that I can remain here only until the racist group in town discover my presence — and we are not at all sure that they do not already know. Certainly they knew that a Negro family had a white man to dinner here on my last trip through. The threat is tangible: perhaps a warning will come, or a molotov cocktail or a shot from out there in the darkness. We say we don’t care, but we are saying in reality: “If they kill or maim us, then let them and let it scandalize the world. We can not bow this low to them. It is better to die than to bow down to a system that makes it wrong for a Negro priest to have a white co-religionist in his home.” The racist would say that my (Continued on Page 2) A,