Fourth Monday of Advent
Originally posted Monday, December 24, 2012
Last night while wrapping gifts and baking cookies, LeAnn and I watched an old movie we’d never seen before: It Happened on 5th Avenue. It’s a 1947, black-and-white story about Aloyisius T. McKeever, a hobo who every year sneaks into the 5th Avenue mansion of Michael J. O’Connor, the world’s wealthiest man who has gone to Virginia for the winter.
McKeever enjoys the good life – the warmth of the house, a comfy bed, hot baths, clean clothes, fine cigars – but he keeps everything in order and always vacates before O’Connor returns. However, this particular year he is joined one-by-one by an assortment of folks who are down on their luck: veterans of WWII who can’t find jobs, a couple with a new baby, and a young runaway named Trudy. We learn, but Trudy doesn’t reveal to McKeever or the others, that she is O’Connor’s daughter and is a refugee of her parents’ divorce and their inability to let her create a meaningful life for herself.
McKeever hears each of their stories and lets them join him in the house, but he lays down strict rules that keep the house clean but that ultimately also promote their dignity and value as people. The twist comes when Trudy lures her wealthy parents back to the mansion where they become homeless in their own home and must live by McKeever’s rules. Doing so, they realize all that they have lost and rediscover what is important.
The story ultimately is about family – the blood kin we have and the family that becomes ours through our common dreams and struggles – the value and dignity of all people regardless of income or station, and the inborn desire of everyone to have a meaningful life and a positive impact on the world.
There are so many great lines and fine thoughts – too many to mention here – but at the end, as they watch McKeever walk away down the snowy sidewalk, O’Connor tells his wife that they need to have the hole in the fence fixed, but not to keep McKeever out. Instead, “next year, he’s coming in through the front door.”
So my question for each of us is: Who or what are we keeping out of our lives – or holding at a distance – that deserves the opportunity to be welcomed through our own front door, whether it’s the door to our home or the door to our heart?
My Christmas wish and prayer for the New Year is that we can find a way to break down our barriers, let down our guard, and open up our hearts to each other and to all that is possible through God’s love, grace and mercy.