Christmas in a Walmart Parking Lot

Sometimes Christmas finds us in the most unusual places: in the parking lot of Walmart on a busy shopping day with too little time and too much to do and people filing in and out of the sliding glass doors and cars vying for the closest parking space,

and a woman named Beverly Legg who has been a Bell Ringer for four years, who stands next to the familiar red kettle waiting for hurried shoppers...like me...to put in some loose change,

but Beverly doesn't ring a bell.

She sits in a folding chair, wearing a blue volunteer's tunic with the Salvation Army logo over the breast pocket and sensible white shoes, and in her hands,

a violin,

an instrument she has played since she was twelve.

I do the math in my head and realize that means fifty-five years of drawing the bow across the strings.

"I don't have much of a voice," she says. "I let the violin sing."

As I walk back to my car, I reflect on three things:

- of the relentless voice of beauty, drawn across strings, that must be played, even to an audience of strangers.

- of the image bearer in all of us, no matter the age, that speaks creative life.

- of Christmas found in a concrete parking lot.

Thank you, Beverly Legg, for your gift.