“...He watches out for the widow
and the orphan.
And He places the homeless
in homes of their own.”
Wick Radcliffe was
chattering in broken Chinese when
I turned the corner off Arch
Street. He was standing in the doorway of his tiny bookshop talking to his
neighbor.
It was amusing to me to
watch him attempt the Mandarin dialect as he did.
He was animated and loud and
his neighbor seemed mildly amused at his efforts. I was nonetheless
impressed…God knows I couldn’t speak the language of this neighborhood.
Arch is the main
thoroughfare of the Chinatown section in Philadelphia. Wick’s store is on a
small side street that runs perpendicular to Arch. It’s really almost an
alleyway. My sister had discovered Wick’s shop on a walk from her house to her
job at a coffee shop about 3 blocks away. She liked the uniqueness of his store
and the fact that he specialized in Christian titles. He was one of maybe two
or three shopkeepers in Chinatown who was not actually Asian. Wick had found
his little shop quite by accident and the rent was very low and he liked the
area. Over the years he had gotten quite friendly with his neighbors and
considered them family.
Stoic Wilson Radcliffe was
from the Main Line area of Philadelphia. He came from money and his family had
been prominent Presbyterians in this predominantly Catholic city. His parents
had given him his very unique name because his mother wanted something that
engendered a strong demeanor, and his father was a self-styled philosopher and
so the Stoics were a favorite read. His middle name of Wilson was shared by his
father’s favorite author and preacher A.W. Tozer.
Wick hated his name. “Who
names their kid ‘Stoic’?” he asked me once. As early as he can remember he
wanted something else but he never could convince his parents to let him change
it. Shortening it to “Wick” was as close as he could get. As for living up to
their “good “Chrustian expectations” as he would say in a forced drawl, (making
reference to the classic line from Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country Folks”),
Wick never followed his family’s piety. He discovered Jesus after waking up in
a gutter in the middle of February in Dewey Beach, Delaware, after a weekend of
drunken debauchery with no recollection of how he got there.
Somehow Wick had gotten a
copy of Brennan Manning’s “The Ragamuffin Gospel” and had his face to face
meeting with the Christ of God. Manning is his favorite author. During our
first meeting, when he discovered my fondness for Brennan, he pulled out a worn
paperback copy of the first printing and opened the page to reveal “To Wick
-best wishes, Brennan” written in purple crayon.
Before I could ask, he
explained that he crossed paths with Manning in the Philadelphia airport and
neither of them had a pen. The only thing they could find was a kid with a
single purple crayon and a five-page coloring book that was provided by the
stewardess from United Airlines. So they borrowed the kids’ purple crayon. Wick
loved that story.
Today was the twenty-seventh
of November and a typically cold, grey day in Philadelphia. I was home for
Thanksgiving and had journeyed up the highway to my hometown and the familiar
sights and sounds. I stopped in at Tony Luke Jr.’s for the city’s best cheese
steak and a hug from the owner. Tony is my friend, and while it’s hard to catch
him in one place for very long, when I do it’s a treat. I visited with Tony for
a half hour and then headed to Wick’s shop, not really knowing what I was
looking for. I knew I wanted an advent calendar for my daughter, because each
Christmas we had one and I wanted to keep the tradition going.
The truth was, I wanted to
visit with Wick because Wick is a true ragamuffin. A broken life who never forgot
what Jesus Christ really did for him when they met, and who had never really
wandered far from what made him such a rascal in the first place. This kept
Wick “soft and tenderized” as he liked to say and never far removed from the
hurts of another. Wick knew that under all our bluff and bluster…we are all
ragamuffins.
It had been a very hard two
years for me and I always felt better about my own humanity after spending an
hour with Wick. I don’t know anyone who is more appreciative of who he was, who
he is, and what could have been if not for God’s intervention in his life. Wick
grows on you.
It was Black Friday, the day
after Thanksgiving, when Christmas shopping officially kicks into overdrive and
the holiday season roars out of the gate. I wasn’t ready for the coming
holidays and that worried me. I am a “Christmas guy” as my friends say. I get
into the Holiday season like few others. From mid-November to the second day of
January, I am one big happy Italian who can’t get enough of traditions and sights
and sounds and smells. My family celebrates Dei Festa de Sette Pisci, “Feast of
Seven Fishes” on Christmas Eve. Morgan and I have a very specific list of
movies, TV shows, and music that must be played during the season.
Somehow this season had
snuck up on me and I wasn’t ready. Over the past two years I had lost my house,
my career, and my possessions when the mortgage industry collapsed. I was a
mortgage banker and had been for ten years. But by 2008 I was homeless and
living in a 1995 Volvo hidden behind a church.
I stayed in Nashville (where
I now live) because my daughter is there with my ex-wife and I have to remain
in her life. Otherwise I would have come home to Philly and never looked back.
I like Nashville just fine, but Philadelphia is home. This year I was sad as
Christmas approached instead of my usual joyful self. Walking down the little
side street to see my friend Wick, I knew one thing: I didn’t know what it
would take to make me happy again.
Wick greeted me with the
usual “Yo!” as I turned the corner. This is the way Philadelphians have said
hello for generations, and it’s a true term of endearment for us. Then he
turned and said something in Mandarin that was obviously funny to his Chinese
neighbor. They both laughed and the Asian man looked at me with mild awe in his
eyes. “What did you tell him Wick?” I asked. Wick smiled and was about to
answer when the Chinese man spoke in halting English, “Mr. Wick says you are
far to rarge a man to have such a dispreasant rook!” I smiled and the Chinese
neighbor laughed. “How you get so big?” he said with a straight face. I stared
at him for a split second and then felt an involuntary smile crossing my lips.
“You’re playing with me right now, aren’t you?” The man broke into peals of
laughter and I felt myself relax a bit. Wick spoke up as he reached his hand
toward mine. “This is Mr. Xiao. He is a professor of English at Temple
University.” I smiled and reached for Wick’s hand, “It’s… Engrish,” Xiao said
with a chuckle. Something about that made me laugh deeply and he extended his
hand to me. “You can call me John” he said in a voice and pronunciation as
perfect as radio announcers. “John…nice to meet you.” I offered.
Wick, John Xiao, and I stood
in the street for a few moments as the day grew dark in a hurry. It was around
4 p.m. and sunset was upon us. Inside the caverns created by skyscrapers, the
shadows grew even faster. A lull in the conversation allowed me to ask Wick the
question on my mind. “Wick…I am looking for an Advent calendar.
Something a little more
substantial than the cheap paper things I can buy everywhere around here. Do
you have any?” “Yeah I might have
something…” Wick said with a smile.
John walked in with us and
we grabbed cups of coffee and walked to Wick’s crowded and overflowing
worktable. Besides retail sales, Wick was recognized as a master in restoring
old texts. He had re-covered an old Bible of mine three summers before and he
was always wanting to show me his latest rare first edition that he had
discovered in a yard sale someplace for a nickel and was bringing back to life.
Wick didn’t have a book to
show me this time, he was busy working his way through his first reading of
“Davita’s Harp” by Chaim Potok and hadn’t had a restoration project in about
two weeks. I chided him for only now discovering Potok, who was a favorite of
mine since college. Wick laughed and reminded me of all the authors he had
recommended over the years that I still haven’t explored. I lowered my head in
mock shame. Wick got us back on point as he pulled out a box of Advent
calendars and showed me each one. There were a few of the traditional paper
calendars with the little door that you open each new day for the month of
December. There was a fabric calendar with 25 pockets sewn in, one for each day
where you inserted a little reliquary or symbol of Christmas.
There was a wooden version
that dated back to about 1928 and was handmade by some Amish folks in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. None of them sparked my interest and none of them seemed
to have what it took for me to get back whatever it was that was missing from
my holiday season.
Wick was puzzled and didn’t
think he had anything that I would really want. “What are you really after?” he
asked me. “I don’t know Wick, something that would take me back to when I was a
boy. Something that will get my daughter back into the spirit. This is the
first year she doesn’t believe in Santa and it is sort of hard for me.”
Wick laughed at this. He had
never had any children of his own but had befriended my daughter when she was
about age four and referred to him as “Uncle Wick”. He knew Morgan’s love for
the season and her love for her daddy. His laughter hid a tinge of sadness that
I could detect in his eyes. Wick is my friend and he understood that I was hurting
this year after all I had gone through.
“Have a seat Craig,” he
said. He, John, and I walked over to three huge leather chairs and sat down.
“Okay…tell me what the matter is really,” Wick said. Before I realized it, I
felt hot tears welling in my eyes and I looked at my shoes instead of my
friend’s face. “Wick,” I began. “I have never felt so lost…not in my whole
life.”
Wick, sat back in his
leather chair. He was almost to the point of lying down. He had known most of
what I had been going through over the last three years and he was concerned.
But somehow he suspected that my current state wasn’t just about the losses I
had been enduring.
“Craig we’ve been friends
for a while, and I know you well enough to know that this isn’t just about
losing your home, or your job. This isn’t about being homeless. This is a lot
more.” I was silent for a while and suddenly the words poured out like water
bursting a dam. “Wick” I began, “I just feel so lost. I feel so sad and so
sorrowful. It’s almost Christmas, usually I am happy beyond belief right about
now but I just feel sadder. I am not living in my car any longer but I have
never felt more homeless, or more alone in this world.”
Tears were flowing now and I
was silent for a long time with my eyes closed. I was thinking about my
daughter being “too old” for Santa. It had all happened so fast…those first ten
years of her life. Being divorced from her mom since Morgan was two only accelerated
the passing of that time. How many bedtime prayers had I missed? Too many for
my liking.
I was thinking about my
fatherhood and how I treasured it, and then I began thinking about my own
father. I have only met my dad once in my life, when I was 43. He desires no
relationship and I have stopped trying to have one. I have the rest of the
family and I am thankful for that.
But still, the holidays are
a time for family and being together and here I was about to be alone yet
again. I said all this to Wick and to John Xiao and they just absorbed it like
sponges without saying much at all. Wick was thoughtful as he finally began to
speak, “Craig, it’s no mistake you are here looking for an Advent calendar. You
really need an advent.” He could tell by the look on my face that I wasn’t
following him.
“Adventus,” he said. “Huh,”
I offered quizzically. “Adventus, it’s the Latin word where we get ‘Advent’, it
means Christ’s being amongst us, the anticipation of his coming.” I wasn’t
following the line of thinking and Wick said, “Jesus entered this world as one
of us -exactly as one of us, the same way we do- as a baby. Have you ever
wondered why he did that?”
“I’ve thought about it
some,” I told Wick. He knew I was a
Brennan Manning fan and he
knew I had read “Lion and Lamb” by Manning. “He came as a baby so we would find
him accessible and approachable. So we wouldn’t be intimidated.” Wick nodded
approvingly. “He came vulnerable so we would understand that His place in our
lives is totally at our mercy, He would only enter where we asked him,” I said,
more to myself than to Wick.
I hadn’t noticed that Wick
had walked to the other side of the room and when I “snapped out of it” he was
standing next to my chair with a box in his hand. John Xiao was smiling
approvingly and he nodded toward the box in Wick’s hand. “Take it” John said.
Wick handed me the box and before I opened it he began to explain, “Craig this
is a special advent calendar…but I can’t tell you why.” That was a strange
statement for Wick to make and my puzzled look betrayed me.
“John has had these in his
family for 78 years. Supposedly everyone who has ever displayed this calendar
over the holidays has had a special encounter with Jesus during that time. The
encounter varies and seldom does anyone talk about it. Apparently it can be so
deeply moving that others would find it hard to believe anyway. John and I
think maybe you need this.” I could sense the enormity of this gift as Wick
handed it to me with John’s approval.
The calendar wasn’t a lot
different than all the other advent calendars I had seen. It was much nicer
than the paper versions available in stores and supermarkets. It was leather,
like a book, but it had no pages. The cover had 25 small handmade doors that
were hinged with tiny leather strips.
Whoever made this went to
great effort. It had the words “ADVENTUS” in large block letters burned into
the leather at the top. Each day was marked in script. It wasn’t typical dark
leather, but was about the color of a baseball glove, a light tan. It was more
a work of art, to me, than it was a calendar or a Christmas reliquary. It must
have taken a very long time to make and it was obviously a labor of love. It
seemed mystical, in the truest sense. As if somehow God had visited this little
handmade calendar. If Christmas really had a spirit…this calendar contained
some of it.
“It’s perfect Wick,” I said.
Wick was smiling broadly, almost knowingly. “Yes…yes it is,” he answered. “How
much?” I asked, and when I did he smiled again. “There is no charge, because
you can’t keep it. When the Christmas Advent is done, and Epiphany has begun,
you have to return it. It is the only one we can get and next year someone else
will need it.” He said that as if he knew all along that this was the exact
calendar for me. As if the entire conversation was just a test to see if I was
ready.
Perhaps that was exactly the
case.
John and Wick and I talked
for a few more minutes, maybe a half hour in all. Then I took my package and
headed out into the chill of the Philadelphia night, looking for my car and
feeling the faintest glimmer of hope that this Christmas season would be
special after all. This beautiful calendar seemed to spark something in my
heart. I couldn’t wait to show my daughter.
I drove out of the city and
across the Platt Bridge on I-95 south. I was lost in thought, as I frequently
am when I drive. I saw the exit for highway 291 -the old “Industrial Highway.”
This road used to be the only link into Philadelphia when I was a child. I-95
ended in Essington back then, and if you were continuing North, you had to get
off at the Boeing plant and take 291 past the Westinghouse factory. From there
you would travel over the Pennrose Avenue Bridge, which lies next to the scrap
yard -where they turn crushed cars into big rusting bricks that look like giant
steel wool pads- and then on into town. I thought about exiting and driving
down 4th Avenue and past my grandparent’s old house, but it was already dark
and there wouldn’t be any point to it.
I miss that house sometimes.
My grandparents are long gone, but I spent so much time there that it was like
home to me. Especially at Christmas…when I always turn to thoughts of home and
family and when living in Nashville feels as far away as living on the moon.
The memories associated with the house on 4th Avenue weren’t all good, but
there were enough good ones to make it call to me as Christmas approaches.
When I am home I stay with
family, and on this trip I stayed with one of the two families who had
“adopted” me years before. Bob and Cathy had first met me when I coached their
son Bryon in high school ice hockey. They quickly became friends and then my
family. I lived in an apartment over their garage for about three years and I
still stay there sometimes. On this particular trip home in 2009, that’s where
I was.
I turned up the drive and
pulled my car to the back. I grabbed my package and walked first to the house
before going to the apartment. I wanted to show Cathy and Bob the wonderfully
unique advent calendar I had gotten on my trip to Philadelphia. They were
sitting in the kitchen when I walked in the back door.
“Look what I found today
Cath,” I said as I pulled the handmade calendar out of the bag and showed her.
She marveled, as I had at the detail and the loving way this calendar was put
together. We talked for 15 minutes or so and then I excused myself for the
night.
I walked across the driveway
to the doorway leading up to the apartment and felt the cold sting of freezing
rain drops.
The November night sky was
spitting hesitantly and I paused to look up. Somewhere above that grey canopy
was an early winter moon. I could see the light as it spread across the top
side of the cloud cover but was unable to find a break and penetrate the night.
Something in this occasion
made me sad. Like there was some light somewhere that needed to touch my soul
and illuminate my own darkness and it wasn’t able to get through to me. The
clouds became symbols of something holding me back. Not sinister necessarily,
but restraining. I waited in the night -very still- hoping for something to
change and the moonlight to find its way through, but all I felt were the
infrequent droplets hitting my face.
I walked to the door and up
the stairs to the place I had called home for three years. I set my bags down
at the top of the stairs and called my daughter to say goodnight. I sat in the
big easy chair and waited for her to pick up. “Hi Daddy,” she said…as she
always does. “Hi honey!” I replied. Ten minutes of exchanging stories about her
day and the upcoming holidays and finally I got to the real purpose for my
call…the calendar.
“Guess what I got us today?”
“What?” she asked me. “I went to Uncle Wick’s shop and found a really amazing
handmade Advent calendar. So this year we can do it again and it will be very
special, it’s really amazing. Mom C saw it and she loves it. Morgan calls Cathy
“Mom C” and considers her a grandmother.
Morgan didn’t say anything
and I was instantly wondering why. “Don’t you think that’s just amazing?’ I
asked. “I guess so,” she said. I waited for a minute -a long time when you have
nothing to say- “You don’t really care to do the Advent calendar this year, do
you?’
I asked her. Her long pause
answered without words. “I don’t care…it’s okay I guess...” she said.
I knew right then I’d lost
this one. She’d outgrown the Advent calendars too. We talked for a few more
minutes but I scarcely remember what we discussed. I told her I loved her and I
would be home in two days. We hung up and I sat there in the darkness with just
a small table lamp across the room. This was not going to be the holiday I had
hoped for and I was beginning to really dread the upcoming Christmas season.
This was unlike me. I was
always a Christmas person. I never wanted to lose that trait and here it was,
after losing so much personally in the past few years, now I was losing a
beloved tradition too. It was too much for me. I sat there for a long time, I
was thinking about my grandmother, and the alabaster Nativity set she would put
under the Christmas tree each year. I was missing my grand mom and feeling the
years rush past.
Hours passed. The clock
struck midnight at Saints Peter and Paul, the old Ukrainian Orthodox church
next door, and I realized it was December 1, and Advent had begun. I fumbled
through the bag and picked up the beautiful calendar that only hours before had
held such promise. Now it was yet another symbol of disappointment and the
changes my life was enduring.
“Well, it’s December First.
I suppose I should do this anyway” I said to nobody but the darkness of the
room. With no small measure of reluctance, I opened the little leather door on
day one and this mystical Advent had begun.
“The Shipwrecked at the stable are the poor in spirit who
feel lost in the cosmos, adrift on an open sea, clinging with a life and death
grip to one solitary plank. Finally, they are washed ashore and make their way
to the stable, stripped of the old spirit of possessiveness in regard to
anything. They have been saved, rescued, delivered from the waters of death,
set free for a new shot at life. At the stable, in a blinding moment of truth,
they make the stunning discovery that Jesus is the plank of salvation they had
been clinging to...”
-Brennan
Manning “Lion and Lamb”
