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Show December 25, 2003 - The Sprlngviile Herald -Page Three, Section Two TTcMoli ufi fe Bourn by Dina Donohue For years now whenever when-ever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Purl-ing. Wally's performance in one annual production of the Nativity Play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old-times who were in the audience that night never ' tire of recalling exactly what happened. Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Most people in town knew that he had difficulty dif-ficulty in keeping up. He wa big and clumsy, slow in V movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation when Wally would ask to play ball with them or any game, for the matter, in which winning was important," impor-tant," .,Yu , Most often they'd find a way to keep him out but Wally would hang around anyway--not sulking, just Recently there came into our hands the following first-hand report by a young father of an experience he had in his home the week before Christmas. Christ-mas. "I was baby sitting with our four old er children while my wife took the baby for his check-up. to me ing the pager E ; while ttiekiJs V ': mess up the house.) Only that day I wasn't reading. I was fuming. On every page of the paper, as I flicked angrily through them, gifts glittered and reindeer pranced, and I was told that there were only six more days in which to rush out and buy what I couldn't afford and nobody needed. 1 .IP i 0 f & 1 1(1 ' 8 4 r4 4 ' L o J x hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling, one and natural protector, paradoxically of the underdog. Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who'd say, "Can't they stay? They're no bother." Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play's director, Miss Lam-bard, Lam-bard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally's size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful. And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathers for the town's yearly extravaganza of crooks and creches, of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stage full of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was 'more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that What, I asked my self indignantly, did the glitter and rush have to do with the birth of Christ? There was a knock on the door of the study where I had barricaded myself. Then Nancy s voice, Daddy, we have a play to put on. Do you want to see it?" I didn't. But I had fatherly fa-therly responsibilities so I followed her into the living room. Right away I knew it was a Christmas play, for at the foot of the piano " From 1 had barricaded myself. M 7X men lxancy s voice, , , A v "Daddy, we have (fS ! J5 tsr w '4 Dr. Harold Judd Davis, and the staff at Mountain West Animal Hospital a Sandra, Damela, Annette, Connie & DeAnn am ; 4n W - ;nrinovillP from time to time Miss Lam-bard Lam-bard had to make sure he did not wander on stage before his cue. Then came the time when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally, the Innkeeper was there, waiting. "What do you want?" Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture. "We seek lodging." "Seek it elsewhere," Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. "The inn is filled." "Sir, we have asked everywhere ev-erywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary." "There is no room in this inn for you," Wally looked properly stern. "Please good Innkeeper, Innkeep-er, this is my wife, Mary, She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired." Now for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stool was a lighted flashlight flash-light wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a shoe box. Rex, age 6, came in wear- ing my bathrobe and carry ing a mop h a n -die. t v He sat on the stool, and looked at the flashlight. Nancy, 10, draped a sheet over her head, stood behind Rex and began, "I'm Mary and this boy is Joseph. Usually Usu-ally in this play Joseph stand up and Mary sits down. But Mary sitting down is taller than Joseph standing up so we thought it looked s r 1 rviA. DVM i (J stiff stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment. embarrass-ment. "No! Begone!" the prompter whispered from the wings. "No!" Wally repeated automatically. "Begone." Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary and Mary laid her head upon her husband's shoulder and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return re-turn inside the inn, however. Wally stood in the doorway watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears. And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from all others. "Don't go, Joseph," Wally called out. "Bring Mary back." And Wallace Purling's face grew into a bright smile. "You can have my room." Some people in town thought the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others-many, many others- better this way." Enter Trudy, 4, at a full run. She has never learned to walk. There were pillowcases pil-lowcases over her arms. She spread them wide and said only, "I'm an angel." Then came Anne, 8. I knew right away she represented rep-resented a wiseman. In the first place she moved like she was riding a camel (she had on her mother's high heels). And she was bedecked be-decked with all the jewelry available.' On the pillow she carried car-ried three items, undoubtedly undoubt-edly gold, frankincense and myrrh. She undulated across the WW WAY mmwmtmtmmmmiwmmmmutmmmmmwmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 11 1 111 1 1 L -lL hmJr JL TM I First Source Funding Home Mortgage Loans Rates as low at 4.25 Free Appraisal Free Credit Check No Down Payment No Closing Costs Debt Consolidation Loans CALL PATRICK AT 489-4800 732 N. Main Street - Springville Good for Springville & Mapleton Residents, with closed loan Expires January 31,2004 Equal Housing Lender - Bates Subject to Change -who considered it the most Christmas of All Christmas M K - iSEtt: I room, bowed to the flashlight, flash-light, to Mary, to Joseph, to the angel and to me and then announced, "I am all three wisemen. I bring precious gifts: gold, circumstance and mud." That was all. The play was over. I didn't laugh. I prayed. How near the truth Anne was! We come at Christmas burdened down with gold--with the showy gift and the tinsely tree. Under the circumstances we can do no other, circumstances of our time and place and custom. And it seems a bit like mud when we think of it. But I looked at the shin pageants they had ever seen. n ML 3 I t VI 'J SLA ing faces of my children, as their audience of one applauded ap-plauded them, and remembered remem-bered that this Child came into a material world and in so doing eternally blessed the material. He accepted the circumstances, imperfect and frustrating, into which He was born, and thereby infused them with the divine. di-vine. And as for mudto you and me it may be something to sweep off the rug, but to all children it is something to build with. Children see so surely through the tinsel and habit and earthly, to the lm, which strains for expression- , r I . It K 1 1 |