ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 5, 1996 TAG: 9612100163
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB SPENCER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Events during the holidays can lift the experiences into cherished memories. Several members of the Roanoke Valley clergy were asked to share their meaningful recollections of the season.
The Rev. Frank Feather of Forest Park Baptist Church remembered the participation of one member of his congregation in a holiday communion service held jointly with Gainsboro's First Baptist Church.
This young man, Tommy , had cerebral palsy, and didn't walk or talk. He wasn't often at the church's special services.
But he was there this year, and his wheelchair fit perfectly next to a short pew right in front of the large Christmas tree. Everyone who went to the altar to receive communion and pray passed by Tommy, who hummed happily as his gaze was fixed on an ornament in the shape of a large white dove on top of the tree.
Feather said the congregation was struck by the sight of such contentment in one who had suffered so much.
When Tommy died a few months later, the dove ornament that had held his attention was placed on his shoulder and buried with him.
* * *
In 1973, Rabbi Jerome Fox of Beth Israel Synagogue was a student in New York City when the tradition of lighting candles on the menorah during the eight days of Hanukkah created a lasting memory about community strength.
That winter was a time of fear, sadness and uncertainty for Fox and his Jewish community in the Forest Hills section of New York. It was the year of the Yom Kippur war between Israel and a coalition of Arab countries.
It was the year of the Arab oil boycott and long lines of frustrated motorists at the gasoline pumps There were widely felt concerns by Fox and his neighbors about an American backlash against Jews.
Fox and his neighbors had fears that Israel could be overrun by the Arab armies. They were worried about the safety of friends and relatives who lived in Israel.
"It was a difficult time," Fox said.
Coincidentally, 1973 was the same year that electrically lighted menorahs were available for purchase.
It is a Jewish tradition to put the menorah in a window to publicize the miracle of Hanukkah. The new electric ones were brighter, and they could be left in windows unattended.
That year, people bought the new electric menorahs by the thousands.
As Fox walked home from school, he could see brightly lighted menorahs in almost all of the apartments in the tall buildings he passed.
"It became a massive display of lights," he said, that transformed a cold New York winter into a world lit up by a powerful new energy.
At a time accented by fear and uncertainty, the display created for Fox and his neighbors a much-needed feeling that "their light had not gone out."
"It was a statement of 'We are here!' It was a light of continuance and hope. It perked me up," he said.
* * *
The Christmas before last, the Rev. Wayne Meadows and 25 friends found joy where people most often see despair.
Meadows manages the Samaritan Inn, a day shelter on Salem Avenue offering meals, religious services and relief assistance to homeless people.
The inn stayed open all night on Christmas Eve that year so the clients could have a place to celebrate. It turned out to be a night that touched their hearts more than they had expected.
Shelter workers and clients ate together, sang together, prayed together. They watched movies. And they laughed.
"Everyone enjoyed each other's company in a way that we had not really often discovered in our day-to-day routine of overcoming hardships," Meadows said.
"Somebody even came in dressed as Santa Claus and put on an act that had everybody laughing."
After the festivities, Meadows said, most people stuck around and slept on the floor in sleeping bags.
* * *
The Rev. Donna Hopkins, youth and family minister at Calvary Baptist Church, treasures a memory of one Christmas during her time as a missionary on the Ivory Coast of Africa.
That Christmas, a co-worker invited the missionaries and the local missionary members to come to his uncle's pig farm for a Christmas service.
The host, like most of his countrymen, was quite poor and had little to offer by American standards.
To protect the guests from the hot African sun, he erected a shelter of palm leaves that served as the sanctuary. Everything else came from the hearts of the 25 people assembled, Hopkins.
Hopkins was struck by the closeness she felt to others in the group.
"We sang songs, and one of us gave the devotional service. It was like a family gathering. I felt so accepted.
"Out of the service and the bonds between us, I felt a warm renewal of the sense that God calls all of us to be brothers and sisters as if we were in one whole family.
"That experience helps me be more aware of and conscious of what should be most important to us in this country. We are blessed with so many material possessions. But I hope we do not lose sight that people are still much more important than are our material possessions."
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