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.
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