Fish

On Christmas Eve, I am at the fish store well before 8am. It’s already busy. We often have snapper for Christmas because it is an event worthy of such a noble creature. When my turn comes, I am glad that the old man is serving me. I watch him gut and scale the fish and know that this is a craftsman at work. He is talking to me but his hands are at one with the fish. Christos anesti, I say and he laughs because that is the Easter greeting. Kyrie eleison, I say, Lord have mercy. I don’t know much other Greek and he always thinks it is hysterical to hear church words over the counter. They belong someplace else. The fish are a little small so I ask for a third one. When the times comes to pay, he gets one of the young people to add up the two sums. There are a dozen staff and he is the only one not wearing the blue T shirt of the business. He knows too much about fish to worry about T-shirts. Get them working, I say as a joke. I never went to school, he replies. Then slows down. Not. One. Day. He is not comfortable with numbers and the machines that look after them. Schools are for fish, he says. I think he may have said this many times before.

At Christmas, we Christians remember the magi and the shepherds. The magi were magicians, people with star charts and formulae. They could read. They came from far away and knew they were supposed to bring gifts. The shepherds were much further down the ladder. They couldn’t read. They rolled down the hill and turned up empty handed. They were the gift.

May those of us who walk in darkness see a great light.

Happy Christmas.