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Wednesday – Christmas Eve
Reprinted from December 31, 2009, slightly revised
My favorite Christmas story when I was growing up was Raymond Macdonald Alden’s “Why the Chimes Rang.” My father read it to us on Christmas Eve, and I read it to my own children in turn. I choke up every time I return to it. (You can read it here.)
The story is about a church with a tower so high that no one can see the top. It is reputed to house the most beautiful-sounding chimes in the world, chimes that sound like “angels far up in the sky” or “strange winds swinging through the trees.”
No one living has ever heard them, however. The story explains, “It was said that people had been growing less careful of their gifts for the Christ-child, and that no offering was brought great enough to deserve the music of the chimes.” Nevertheless, each Christmas the rich and famous gather at the church in hopes of bestowing the gift that will set off the chimes. Each gift surpasses the previous:
And last of all walked the king of the country, hoping with all the rest to win for himself the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great murmur through the church, as the people saw the king take from his head the royal crown, all set with precious stones, and lay it gleaming on the altar, as his offering to the holy Child. “Surely,” every one said, “we shall hear the bells now, for nothing like this has ever happened before.”
The only response from the bells, however, is silence:
But still only the cold old wind was heard in the tower, and the people shook their heads; and some of them said, as they had before, that they never really believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they ever rang at all.
Pedro and Little Brother are on their way to the service, where they plan to lay a silver coin on the altar. On the way, however, they come across a woman who has fallen in the snow. Pedro decides to stay with her to care for her and sends Little Brother on to the church. The decision is hard:
In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the city, and winked hard to keep back the tears, as he heard the crunching footsteps sounding farther and farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to lose the music and splendor of the Christmas celebration that he had been planning for so long, and spend the time instead in that lonely place in the snow.
Of course, it is their gift that sets the chimes playing. Here’s how the story ends:
The procession was over, and the choir began the closing hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped playing as though he had been shot, and everyone looked at the old minister, who was standing by the altar, holding up his hand for silence. Not a sound could be heard from anyone in the church, but as all the people strained their ears to listen, there came softly, but distinctly, swinging through the air, the sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away, and yet so clear the music seemed—so much sweeter were the notes than anything that had been heard before, rising and falling away up there in the sky, that the people in the church sat for a moment as still as though something held each of them by the shoulders. Then they all stood up together and stared straight at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the long-silent bells.
But all that the nearest of them saw was the childish figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly down the aisle when no one was looking, and had laid Pedro’s little piece of silver on the altar.
If tears come to my eyes every time I read this story, I think it’s because it reminds me that each of us has chimes buried deeply within us. I’m referring here to the inner divinity that Jesus perceived and that he shared with his disciples and anyone else who would listen. “For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you,” he proclaims in Luke (17:21).
We need reminding, however, because we get sidetracked when the winter wind is howling. The world is too much with us, as Wordsworth put it, so that we cannot hear the chimes. Or to put it another way, although the chimes may always be ringing, we do not open ourselves to them. As Jesus puts it, “He who has ears let him hear.”
Jesus also says, “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Pedro and Little Brother remind me of the child I once was. I recall how my heart used to swell as Pedro sacrifices what he wants for something more important. It still does. In the grip of the story, I become innocent again. It doesn’t matter that no one sees me, that no one acknowledges me, as I lay my coin quietly on the altar. I am in touch with the chimes.
Reading “Why the Chimes Rang,” in short, opens a door to the numinous, which is why I incorporate it into my yearly Christmas rituals. To borrow from Emily Dickinson, such stories truly are chariots that bear the human soul.
