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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 24, 2015)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2015 The message of the missing shepherds By MURIEL JENSEN For The Daily Astorian W hen I was a child in New Bedford, Massachusetts, my parents had a nativity set they’d bought at Woolworth’s. (For those of you too young to remember, Woolworth’s was a dime store where you could ¿nd any- thing from toys to tableware, a kind of precursor to today’s discount stores.) The stable was made of balsa wood, I think, and the ¿gures were brightly painted plaster. One of the shepherds had a broken nose and another was missing a hand. Their stares were a little vacant, but my older sister and I im- bued them with person- alities and placed them on a side table in the living room. My mother gave me Muriel the set when I got mar- Jensen ried (my sister had en- tered the convent) and it traveled around with Ron and me from Los Angeles to McMinn- ville to Boise as Ron followed a career in the newspaper business. By then we’d adopted a family of three children and they’d added favorite person- al things like houses and animals and some pipe-cleaner trees. Packing the set for our move to Astoria in 1976 required two boxes. Only one of them made it here. I opened an unfamiliar box of similar size and stared in confusion at construction paper and stencils. I imagined a teacher somewhere wondering why she had three plaster shepherds with dis- abilities and a balsa wood stable. I called the moving company to report that part of our nativity set had been mixed up with what I presumed were teacher’s supplies. I guess because none of those things was a very big ticket item, we never heard back. Ron, the problem-solver, had a brilliant solution. He dug out a set of Lincoln Logs from his childhood (he still has the shoes he wore to play tennis in college) and he and the kids built a stable. It was a masterpiece with a stall for the cows, a pecking spot for the chickens on the Àat roof. Shredded yellow paper padded the manger and fed the cows. I spread the wise men to take up space. Our daughter, then7, insisted there had to be shepherds. We went in search of some, but couldn’t ¿nd separate pieces for sale. That was when I discovered Fontanini ¿gures at a Christ- mas shop in Portland. They were exquisite, made of break-resistant polymer (great for a house with children) and painted with non- lead-based paint by villagers in a small town in Tuscany called Bagni di Lucca. I fell in love. The characters had beautiful- ly expressive faces, and no broken noses or missing hands. They were subtly painted and even the camel was magni¿cent. Still, they cost more than our budget al- lowed. On the way out of the store, I spotted a sale table and went to investigate. One of the middle-sized sets without the stable was on Submitted Photo Muriel Jensen’s nativity scene is cobbled together from many desperate features. It is easy enough to be so focused on the road ahead that you never look up. Submitted Photo sale for half price! I couldn’t believe it. It was fate! We made the purchase and as Ron took the box from the clerk, I told her how excited we were to ¿nd this, that we were replacing a set with missing pieces. “You realize,” she said, suddenly serious, “that this is half price because it’s missing the shepherds.” I looked at Ron in exasperated disbelief, then we laughed and took the set home any- way. A writer is always looking for motivation, for that telling backstory that helps mold a character and sets him on his path to change. As I moved my mom’s old ¿gures to the top of a small table in the kitchen, and placed my Fontaninis in their Lincoln Logs stable, I wondered about the signi¿cance of the ab- sence of shepherds at our nativity. Did it suggest we had no guidance? That could be true. We tried hard but felt like we were winging it as parents, sometimes with good results, sometimes not. Did it mean there was no representation of humility in our lives? Well, that wasn’t true. When we ¿led for adoption we’d been pre- pared to add one child to our lives and got a family of three. We’d had to buy two more of everything. We did know what ¿nancial humility meant. Did we just not see the star or hear the an- gels sing? I didn’t think so. Ron was a born reporter and never missed anything. But it is easy enough to be so focused on the road ahead that you never look up. Then it occurred to me that maybe the message was that this year, we had to be our own shepherds. Our representation of the na- tivity didn’t have to be perfect today. It was sort of cobbled together, like our lives; two adults trying to make room between them for three children, and those children bonded so tightly together that it was hard for them to open their arms to us. What if letting in some- one else diminished their closeness? So we all just huddled together that Christ- mas, realizing we were building a family the way we were putting together the creche. We didn’t have everything we needed in the way of patience, tolerance, understanding, but hopefully it would come with time. Maybe next year. And though we didn’t have shepherds, we had their message. Roughly translated, if I’m allowed to do that to St. Luke, it’s “Don’t be afraid, He’s here. Give Him glory by being peo- ple of peace and show goodwill to everyone.” Merry Christmas from the Jensen/Baker family. Astoria resident Muriel Jensen has pub- lished more than 70 books and novellas. The Donald Trump Days of Christmas By GAIL COLLINS New York Times News Service H appy holidays! I say this with some trep- idation, because Donald Trump has vowed that when he is presi- dent, “We’re all going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.” That was a while ago, during his war on the Starbucks coffee cup design. So very much water has run under the Trumpian bridge since then. But I’m still trying to figure out exactly how a universal “Mer- ry Christmas” mission would be accomplished. Would there be a “holiday” gag order? Seasonal salutation checks at the border? This is supposed to be a down period for presidential campaign- ing, since most of the population is focused on celebrating you- know-what with friends and fami- lies. But Trump has given us such a not-normal year that people will be drinking eggnog by the fire and discussing the proper use of the word “schlonged.” The happiest holiday parties should be with Team Clinton, which clearly believes that going to war with Trump is good for her cause and that having Trump as the Republican nominee would be even better. this week that he hates Their current fight be- journalists, and he ap- gan when Hillary, in the peared to be mulling the last Democratic debate, idea of killing some of said ISIS was “going to them. To be fair, he did people showing videos conclude by announcing of Donald Trump insult- he wouldn’t do that. ing Islam and Muslims For which I presume in order to recruit more we’re supposed to be radical jihadists.” There grateful. is actually no specific Once, long ago, I was evidence this is happen- Gail the subject of Trumpian ing, although it certainly Collins ire — I had referred to seems probable. For the sake of perfect accura- him as a “thousandaire” — and his cy, Clinton should have said that response was to send me a copy ISIS “is bound to start going.” of the column with a couple of in- We would dwell on imperfect sults written over my picture and verb choice longer if PolitiFact a note in which he misspelled the hadn’t just announced that out of word “too.” So really, he’s not all 77 Trump statements it looked that threatening. As long as he re- into, 76 percent were rated Mostly mains a private citizen, the worst he can do is to throw up an ugly False, False or Pants on Fire. The Trump campaign is a new apartment building or hotel in phenomenon. He mainly flies your neighborhood. But the president thing is no around on his planes, speaks at big rallies and calls into radio and longer a joke. You may have no- TV news talk shows. Trump brags ticed that the competition is start- about his lack of interest in fund- ing to fall away. This week Sen. raising, but he doesn’t seem to be Lindsey Graham threw in the tow- spending much of his own money, el, or, in polite political-speak, either. This is a guy whose great “suspended his candidacy.” Carly keys to fortune were inheriting Fiorina, Rand Paul and John Ka- real estate and putting his name on sich seem likely to be consigned things that other people often paid to the loser’s section when the Re- for. Maybe he figures he can be- publicans have their next debate. That brings us down to six peo- come president just by branding it. After the Hillary diatribes, ple, one of which is Ben Carson, Trump told a howling audience who’s fading fast. Also Jeb Bush, THE TRUMP DAYS OF CHRISTMAS On the seventh day of Christmas, he gave to you and me ... Seven Mexican rapists Six terrorist refugees Thousands of Muslims partying on 9/11! Four “loser” opponents Hillary-bathroom sniping Two birther rants And a bromance with Vladimir Putin. This is, if nothing else, a campaign where the insults are meeting a new norm. who was last seen wandering around New Hampshire, remind- ing people how many times he’s been there. At this point in the po- litical cycle, if you’re a desperate candidate you go somewhere cold and try to get the population to fall in love with you just because they’ve had so many opportunities to shake your trembling, frostbit- ten hand. Ted Cruz is doing something along that line in Iowa, where he’s ahead. But he’s also moved into a clear second place in the polls, terrifying the party estab- lishment and many Republican billionaire donors, who regard Cruz as an obnoxious self-pro- moting egomaniac. There is noth- ing the oligarch class hates more than egomaniacs. The big donors appear to be particularly fond of Sen. Marco Rubio, the attractive, 44-year-old Floridian who has done very well in the debates. The other candi- dates find Rubio’s popularity irritating, particularly since he hasn’t been campaigning all that hard. Or doing anything else, it appears. Trump called Rubio a sweaty underachiever “with no money, zero.” This is, if noth- ing else, a campaign where the insults are meeting a new norm. Thanks almost entirely to the front-runner. STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager • CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager • DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Founded in 1873
