On Being a Ringer

For as long as I can remember my family has read The Polar Express on Christmas Eve night before going to bed. As kids, we would always get so excited to read it because it meant that Christmas and presents were just on the other side of closing our eyes. We used to all sleep in the same room, some beds, some in sleeping bags. After getting ready for bed, we would all lay or sit down and someone would read the book. It was always one of highlights of the holiday. In more recent years I remember reading it together and laughing ourselves to tears, as my brother read the story, inserting hilarious additions to the text. And in even more recent years, I have read it to my children, in the same way my parents read it to me.

What is it about that story that has made it such a success? Why does it never get old? It can't be that it is about Santa or Christmas, there are tons of stories with those themes. Maybe it is that we've all looked out the window on some Christmas Eve hoping to see a giant train hissing steam in front of our house. Maybe it's the illustrations, which are really quite fabulous. Maybe it's that our imaginations ogle such verbal images like drinking hot cocoa as think as melted chocolate bars.

While all those things certainly don't hurt the story's survivorship, I think the real reason is something a bit more profound. How many of us have gotten to the end of the book, when he talks about his parents, friends, and even his sister not being able to hear the bell, and wondered, perhaps with a little bit of angst, would the bell ring for me? I think the number of people with "ears to hear" (Matt 13:9) is getting smaller all the time. However, I think the real lesson of the story is not just will we hear the bell, but will we be ringers?

The boy upon hearing the bells on Santa's sleigh describes them as making the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. The glad tidings of The First Gift of Christmas truly is the most beautiful sound one could hear and it really does fill the "soul with exceedingly great joy" (1 Nephi 8:12). But the boy was only entrusted with the bell when he, having the opportunity to choose anything else in the world, chose the bell. Santa gave it to him because he knew the boy would ring it.

So, the question is not would we hear the bell, but would we choose the bell and would we ring it "on the mountain, over the hills, and everywhere"? That is what qualifies us to be entrusted with the bell, even those of us whose pockets at times seem to be nothing but holes. May you and I always choose to be faithful ringers. Merry Christmas!