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The Hitchhiker's Nativity
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The big dump of snow had melted during
the day, and then frozen viciously hard again as night fell. Accidents abounded.
Not even the cops could keep their feet as they directed traffic around a whole
series of accidents.
I was driving from Kamloops to Kelowna, normally under a two-hour drive.
But this time, because of accident delays and road conditions, it took me an
hour just to get to the turnoff that led south towards Kelowna.
Just before the turnoff, the road tilted left. I could feel my car
slipping sideways on the ice as I crept around yet another accident, avoiding
yet another cop suddenly flailing his flashlight against the black sky as his
feet flew out from under him.
Then, as I was about to accelerate gently ahead, I heard a tap at my
passenger window. A pale, waiflike face peered in at me, bundled in a woolen
scarf.
“Could you give me a ride?” she asked. “It's real cold out here.”
I don't usually pick up hitchhikers, but these did seem to be
exceptional circumstances. “Hop in,” I said.
Parallel situations
For over two hours more
that night, we probed through the darkness towards home for me, a visit to a
relative for her. She was pregnant. Almost ready to give birth. She knew the
father, but didn't want to spend her life with him, so she was going to have the
baby on her own. I heard about her rather strained relationships with her
mother. And with her brother, killed uselessly in a car accident a year before.
But her child's life was going to be different, she insisted. Her child
wouldn't suffer that same estrangement. Her child would not grow up
disadvantaged. She was going back to school, getting her Grade 12, so that she
could get a decent job…
As the road and the night rolled by, I realized I had Mary in my car.
No, that was probably not her name. I deliberately didn't ask. Because I didn't
want to get involved. Just like the innkeeper and the other B&B operators in
Bethlehem. Who didn't want their lives and establishments tainted by association
with a single mom, an unwed mom.
And no, before you leap to conclusions, I'm not suggesting that this
woman was a virgin, or that Mary the mother of Jesus hitchhiked to Bethlehem
alone. Details differ; situations stay the same. A young woman, whose pregnancy
changed her perspective.
A new perception
Now, with a baby
coming, she saw the world differently. It was no longer a pleasure palace to be
drunk to the full. It was a place where injustice needed to be fought, where
relationships mattered, where love became the primary motivation.
And if things were going to get better, she had to do something about
it.
Read Mary's song (Luke 1:46-55, often called the Magnificat from
its opening words in Latin) in the biblical story of the nativity. And think
about my pregnant hitchhiker as you read it.
Copyright © by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
To send comments on this column, email
Jim Taylor
directly. You can also receive Jim's column by email. Contact him at
jimt@quixotic.ca
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