I Have No Gift to Bring. Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum.
You haven’t heard anything from me because I’ve been feeling like the little drummer boy from that one Christmas song. What I have to offer you is so small — so inadequate — that it makes me wonder if it’s even worth offering. And for some reason, despite the fact that it’s March, I can’t help but resonate with the theme of “The Little Drummer Boy.” If you’re unfamiliar with the old carol, the premise is that on their way to find the baby Jesus, the Magi invite a poor little kid to join them on their quest.
Come, [the Magi] told me
A newborn King to see
Our finest gifts we bring
To lay before the King,
So to honor Him.
(Little dude arrives at the stable alongside the Magi he traveled with. He speaks to the newborn Christ…)
Little baby,
I am a poor boy too
I have no gift that’s fit to give our King
Shall I play for you?
Mary nodded.
The ox and ram kept time
I played my drum for Him
I played my best for Him
Then He smiled at me,
Me and my drum.
It’s hard to believe that I have something to offer when I’ve been unemployed for eight months. It’s hard to believe that I can produce something worth reading when it seems like all the words have already been taken. Maybe its just my IG feed, but people have a lot to say about this weird time of social distancing. We’re all facing the same big problem, so we’re all saying the same sorts of things. I want to contribute, but what could I, possibly? I don’t know I’ll ever make it as a writer — -I’m more like the asphalt beneath my book’s flat tires.
But then, being a human, and some sort of teacher at heart, and having a love language of gift-giving, I want to bring a gift to you all.
So like the drummer boy asks, “Shall I play for you?” I have been wondering:
“Is there anything I can say to you?” Anything that won’t be simply adding to the noise? Anything meaningful with some sort of weight and value? I don’t know. I’m certainly doubtful. But in this season, like the drummer drums (maybe because he has no other options), so I write (also, maybe because I have no other options).
Next, “Mary nodded.”
Perhaps (I’m hoping, anyway) that it’s the Holy Spirit who nodded at me and reminded me of this little cobwebbed corner of the internet that is mine to put words on — as many as I’d like and whichever ones I’d like. Redundant, crappy, or long-winded as they may be — He has given me this little forgotten space on the interwebs to place my words on.
“The ox and lamb kept time” for the little drummer boy. They joined in his beat — pretty sweet. I guess my cursor and the teenytiny things that make my screen glow are my ox and lamb. It’s a stretch — a huge, over-reaching, gratutious stretch — but this is my corner, and I’ll stretch if I want to. And use stupid allusions if I want to.
“I played my drum for Him
I played my best for Him”
This is the hard part. To play my drum for Him, er, to write for Him…
If you’re a cynic like me, in some twisted way, I’m rolling my eyes at myself along with you, because when people say they’re doing something for God, are they ever really?
I think it is possible, not because they are entirely selfless and have pristine motives, but because I believe it’s true in the Bible when it says, “We love because He first loved us.” I am not love. God is love, and any beautiful desire in me to reach out to anyone isn’t me being a beautiful human. It’s God being beautiful and inviting me into His process. (He’s inviting you too.)
I want to write my best for Him. As though I could ever genuinely impress Him (let alone you). I think one reason God is called a “Good Father” (which admittedly is a foreign concept for many of us) is because we’re like His four year olds excited to give our Daddy the silly scribbles we just made. He loves them, because we are His. In this way, when I offer Him my writing, although it might be crazy inane scribbles, He loves it.
Then He smiled at me
Me and my drum.
So I suppose that tomorrow I’ll throw some more words on here. Hopefully something relevant and maybe even slightly original. Not because I think I have some secret that the rest of us don’t, but because I believe the Maker creates only originals, who, when they’re being honest and true (#goals), create nothing but originals.
