施予者
作者：麦克．梅逊 中文翻译：杨光
一九九五的圣诞节早晨。
海德尔那时才八岁。我们一起围著客厅里的圣诞树坐著还没开始开礼物，但海德尔却一边把爸爸送她的礼物拉出来一边喊：“我要这个！”
“海德尔，把这个礼物留到最后开好吗？”我一次又一次地说道。
“可我现在就要开！”她哇哇大叫道。
她已经扯开了礼物上的彩带儿。怎么办？把礼物抢走？我的脑海里浮现出我们激烈地争夺一件圣诞礼物：一个小女孩儿满面泪水，生气的跑出屋子，凯伦用责备的眼光看著我─这圣诞节就被糟掉了。
同时，我又在考虑盒子里的东西。这是一个非常非常特殊的礼物，把它留到最后对我来说是很重要的。海德尔更不能以她现在的状况去开礼物：又贪心又撒娇又冒失。简直是惯坏了!
“海德尔，不要现在开那份礼物好吗？我求你了！”
“爸爸，别开玩笑了。这是我的礼物，我想开就开。”
包装纸被撕破了。
“海德尔，不要！”
已经太晚了。盒子露了出来，盖子也被掀开了。现在纱纸被掀开了…
没事儿，我告诉自己:「放松，深呼吸，沉住气!」虽然特殊的礼物不特殊了，但是天还没有塌下来！
突然间，一个奇迹发生了！谁会想到这种事儿会发生？
海德尔在哭！抽抽噎噎地哭泣著。当盒子里的东西露出来时，她哭得几乎心都要碎了似的。
我和凯伦靠到她身边，抱紧她。我们一起朝盒子里的东西望去，海德尔的哭声仍旧不停止。

我回想起昨晚圣诞夜的事情。快到夜里十二点了，虽然忙碌的一周使我疲惫不堪，想马上睡觉，可是还有一件需要做的事情。这本来是一个很容易处理的事儿，可就像大多数我尝试的手工，它突然变得很离奇复杂。
我坐在曾祖父的老橡木桌前，台灯将光芒撒在桌面上。我一手拿著一个十八英寸长的木制十字架，另一手拿著一个塑料制成的耶稣像，身缠腰布，手臂伸展开来。我正在想办法把这两样拼到一起。桌上放著一管子水泥胶，旁边有一小瓶环氧树脂。可这两样东西全都不管用。我正准备到楼下拿热胶，但我现在就可以告诉你，那也没用。
问题是「耶稣」的身体是弯曲的，它的手和脚不在同一个平面上。所以我每次把它粘下去，它又弹起来了。这塑料挺结实的嘛！
最后我气得几乎要用钉子钉这要命的东西。我把这个乱摊子交给凯伦。手巧的她，很容易地便弄好了这件事。
现在可以睡觉了。

在海德尔的生命中，我只听过两次像那样的哭声。一次是那个圣诞节早晨，另一次是我们在教会里唱赞美诗的时候。其实只有我和凯伦在唱，那个年龄的海德尔只会看书、画画、做小动作、说话或找吃的。
突然间，她毫无理由地哭了起来。孩子不同的啼哭有不同的声音，我马上就知道这不是因为一个疼痛的手指头，或一个被拒绝的请求而发出的平常哭声，这是悲痛的哭泣。你是否听过一个孩子悲痛的哭泣？我想天使的哭声也不会比这更意外、更神圣、更令人断肠地圣洁。
哭泣声持续了很久，当它停止时，我们的女儿就像一朵在晨曦中被露水洗□的、含苞初放的玫瑰。
后来，我们问她发生了什么事，她简单地回答道：“我看到了天使的光辉。”在那时，我正在写一本关于天使的书，其中提到，有的人所看到的天使不是人形，而是彩色的光。那天早晨，海德尔朝教会的阳台望去，看到一道五彩缤纷的亮光。这触到了她的心，因此她后来经常说那是她的“异象”。
在那个是圣诞早晨，我又一次听到了女儿悲痛的哭声。这次她所看到的不是异象，而是一个坚硬的，可触摸到的东西。
海德尔在为一个十字架而啼哭，那上面挂著耶稣。
她的哭声是深情的、猛烈的，带有温柔而痛苦的忏悔。
十字架是她一直都想要的，多次向我请求过。我的书房里挂著一个，是在我十五岁时在圣公会的坚固礼上得到的礼物。可我在十四年后才成为一名基督徒，其间做了不少乱七八糟的事。然而，不知为什么，我走到哪里都会把这个十字架挂在墙上。
海德尔有一天看到了，就向我要一个挂在她的屋里。我很高兴，几乎欣喜若狂了。我当然乐意给她耶稣，胜过给她芭比娃娃。
所以，我就兴致勃勃的去天主教书店(其实更像是个珠宝店或五金店)，站在「哭墙」面前寻找著合适的十字架，但没有一个中意的。毕竟，还有两天就是圣诞节了，根本不是季节嘛。也许他们复活节的货少了吧。
最后，我只好分开买十字架和「耶稣」了，也就是我为什么在圣诞夜那天费劲地想把「耶稣」安在十字架上，却发现安不上去。
第二天，我迫不及待地等海德尔打开她特殊的礼物。可那必须是在最后，等到所有物质主义的期盼消退之后。那样的话，我琢磨著，我们可以自然地进入家庭灵修时间。每年的此时，为了让海德尔在知不觉间从礼物回到圣经里，对我都是一个挑战。
今年，我不准备从路加福音读圣诞故事，而是读关于受难节和复活节的故事。这将会是一个不同的，难以忘怀的圣诞节。
可我万万没有想到这次圣诞节是这么不同，这么难忘。
海德尔继续哭著，一直不停。
我们三人挤在沙发上，直到哭声终於平息了。海德尔尚未把十字架拿出来，现在她开始轻轻的，探索式地摸著它，最终把它取了出来。
这时，整个屋子里很明显的被一种温馨、浓厚、金色的荣光充满著。我们每个人都感受到了，每人都含著热泪、身心柔和、眼神明亮、内心深处被深深的感动了。彷佛上帝亲手将我们像圣诞礼物一样打开，用他仁慈的手抚摩著我们，打开我们真正温柔的内心。
后来发生的不是一个重复多遍的灵修时间，而是我经验过最美好的自然而然的崇拜。当上帝在我们当中时，我们除了感谢赞美他还能作什么？我们放声高唱著圣诗和颂赞主诞生的歌，我们甚至起来围著圣诞树兴高采烈地手舞足蹈起来。
是的，在那一天，耶稣才不会呆在十字架上呢！他才不会被粘上去，被钉在墙上呢！一个八岁的小女孩，在将近一个钟头里，完全忘记了其他需要打开的礼物，只庆祝著那么一件礼物，一件令她突然知道比世界上所有的礼物都好的礼物!
那个圣诞早晨从盒子里出来的不是一个十字架，而是耶稣自己─活著，像君王般的美好，充满喜乐的耶稣。这不仅仅是一件微小的礼物，而是施予者他自己！
□1995 版权所属，经作者允准刊登，特此鸣谢。(真理报2002年12月号)

The Giver
Author: Mike Mason Chinese Translation by: Linda Yang
Christmas morning, 1995.
Heather is eight years old and we’re sitting in the living room around the tree. We’ve barely begun to open the presents, but already Heather is dragging out the one from Daddy crying, “ I want this one.”
“No, Heather,” I say for about the tenth time. “That’s a special one and I’d like you to save it until the end.”
“But I want it NOWWWWWW!” she wails.
Already she’s grabbing at the ribbon. What to do? Snatch the box away? In my mind I picture a vicious physical struggle over a Christmas present, a little girl hot with tears bolting furiously from the room, Karen glaring at me reproachfully, Christmas Day in ruins.
At the same time, I’m thinking about the contents of this box. This is a very, very special gift, and it’s important to me that it is left until last. It’s especially important that Heather not open it in her present condition: grasping, whining, impudent, spoiled rotten.
“Heather, please don’t open that now. I beg you.”
“Daddy, don’t be silly. It’s my present; I can open it if I want.”
Already the paper is being torn.
“Heather─Stop! Please!”
But it’s too late. The bare box is exposed, and now the lid is coming off. Now the tissue paper is parting卲ar Okay, okay, I tell myself. Lean back, take a deep breath. Get a grip. The special present is ruined, but it’s not the end of the world.
And then, all at once─a miracle! Who would have dreamed that such a thing could happen?
Heather is crying! Sobbing, in fact. As the contents of the box are laid bare, she’s sobbing and sobbing as if her heart would burst.
Karen and I lean closer, put our arms around her. All together we gaze at the object in the box, still the crying goes on and on卲ar
Now let me back up to the night before, Christmas Eve. It’s getting on to midnight, and after a busy week I’m aching for bed, but there’s one more job I have to do. It’s a job that was supposed to be easy but like most manual tasks I undertake, it’s developed a bizarre complication.
I’m seated in a halo of light at my grandfather’s old oak desk. In one hand I hold a wooden cross about eighteen inches long, and in the other plastic figure of Jesus in a loincloth with His arms outstretched. I’m trying to get the two to fit together. On the desk is a tube of contact cement, and beside it a small bottle of epoxy. Both substances have utterly failed to accomplish their intended purpose. I’m about to go down to the basement to get the hot glue. But I can tell you right now, that’s isn’t going to work either.
The problem is that Jesus is warped. His hands and His feet are not on a level plane, so every time I try to stick Him down, He pops up again. This plastic is really tough stuff!
Finally I get so exasperated with the darned thing that I’m about to ready to use nails. At that point, I turn the whole mess over to Karen, who of course with her womanly arts accomplishes it easily.
And so to bed.

Only once before in her life have I heard Heather cry the way she cried that Christmas morning. The other time, we were in church singing worship songs. At least, Karen and I were singing. At that age, Heather was more likely to be reading, drawing, fidgeting, talking or rummaging around for food.
All at once, for no apparent reason, she burst into tears. Different kinds of crying have different sounds, and instantly I knew that this was no ordinary crying over a pinched finger or a thwarted desire. This was weeping. Have you ever heard a child weep? The crying of angels, I suppose, could hardly have a sound more surprising, more holy, more heartrendingly pure.
It went on for a long, long time, and when it ceased, our little girl looked like a freshly bloomed rose washed in dew in the first light of the morning.
Later, when we asked her what had happened, she said simply, “I saw an angel light.” Around then I was working on a book about angels, and I’d mentioned the fact that some people see angels not in the form of figures, but as colored lights.
Glancing up toward the church balcony that morning, Heather had seen a circular light composed of many beautiful colors. This is what had touched her heart, and for long afterwards, she referred to this experience as her ‘vision’.

Now it’s Christmas morning, and once again I’m hearing the sound of my daughter weeping. Only this time it’s not a vision she’s seeing; it’s something solid and tangible. An object.
The object Heather is crying over is a crucifix. Jesus on the cross.
Her crying was deep, savage, tender, wrenchingly repentant.
The crucifix is something she wanted. Asked for. I have one in my study, which I received as a gift at the age fifteen on the occasion of my confirmation in the Anglican Church. I did not become a Christian until fourteen years later, in the meantime sowing a lot of wild oats. But for some reason, wherever I went I kept that crucifix hanging on my wall.
Heather, looking at it one day, asked if she could have one for her room. I was pleased. Overjoyed, in fact. I’d far rather give her Jesus than Barbie.
So off I went to the Catholic bookstore (really more of a jewelry or hardware store) to stand in front of the “wailing wall” inspecting the crucifixes. I couldn’t find one that I liked. After all, it’s two days before Christmas, hardly the right season. Maybe their Easter stock was low.
In the end I had to buy the cross and the figure separately, and that is why I spent Christmas Eve trying to affix Jesus to His cross and finding out that He didn’t want to go.

The next day I could hardly wait for Heather to open her special present. But it had to be at the end, after the orgy of materialism was spent. That way, I reasoned, we could move easily into a time of family devotions. Every year this is a challenge, trying to slip the Bible in among the presents without Heather noticing.
This year, instead of the Christmas story from Luke, I planned to read the story of Good Friday and Easter. It would be a different sort of Christmas, a memorable one.
Yet never in my fondest imaginings could I have predicted just how different and memorable this Christmas was to be.
Heather’s sobbing went on and on卆nd on and on卲ar The three of us sat there huddling on the couch until, finally, it subsided. Heather still hadn’t taken the crucifix out of the box. Now she began to touch it, delicately, exploratively, and eventually she took it into her hands.
By this point it was clear that room was filling up with a kind of warm, rich, golden glow. All of us felt it. We were all teary, softened, bright-eyed, touched to the core. It was as if God Himself had opened us up like Christmas gifts, run His tender fingers all over us, and exposed our soft and real hearts.
What happened then was no canned devotional time, but the most beautiful spontaneous worship I have ever experienced. With God right there in the room, what else could we do but thank and praise Him, lift our voices in hymns and carols, and even get up and dance around the Christmas tree for pure joy!
Oh yes─Jesus would not stay on His cross that day! He would not be glued down and hung on a wall! For close to an hour, an eight-year-old girl completely forgot all the rest of her presents still waiting to be opened, and celebrated one present only, the one gift that she suddenly knew to be better than all other gifts in the world put together.
What came out of the box that Christmas morning was no crucifix, but Jesus Himself─Jesus alive, royally well, and bursting with happiness. This was more than a mere gift─it was the Giver Himself!
□Used by author’s permission