If I had to run into my home because of the proverbial fire (which sadly is not merely proverbial this week in Southern California) and retrieve the proverbial treasured things that one could escape with without risking one’s life, one of the cherished items I would grab would be a framed icon of St. Nicholas that holds rich memories of family rituals and customs for me.

Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas is my second favorite saint next to il Poverello of Assisi. I imagine that is the case worldwide as well, both among Christians and non-Christians.

Unlike “God’s Fool” from the hills of Umbria about whom we know quite a lot, very little is known about the historical figure Nicholas. We can put what is reliable into one sentence: He was a fourth-century bishop from Myra, a city on the southern coast of Turkey. It is telling that he is not only the patron saint of both Russia and Greece but of more occupations and causes than any other Christian saint. Among others his patronage extends to the likes of sailors, children, pawnbrokers, fisherfolk, repentant thieves (unrepentant ones must rely on St. Jude, I guess), brewers, the falsely accused, and prostitutes which indicates he was either as picky about his friends as was Jesus (not very) or quite deliberately picked his friends as Jesus did from among the socially marginalized.

There are numerous legends, Turkishly delightful ones full of benevolent shenanigans that still travel today with Nicholas’ memory from country to country like the perennial dust cloud around Pigpen of the cartoon Peanuts fame. Many if not most of the legends still swirling around St. Nicholas are tales of generosity, even of rescue by means of his generosity. I suspect St. Nicholas is beloved world over not primarily because of the Westernized evolution of Santa Claus but because of the universal power of selfless giving that brings joy or relief or gratitude to the lives of those who are fortunate enough to receive it.

Perhaps, as Gertrud Mueller Nelson suggested many years ago in her lastingly relevant book, To Dance with God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration one way to address people’s supposed concern to put Christ back into Christmas is by celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas more earnestly and creatively each December 6^th as a time for gift-giving, leaving The Feast of Christmas as a celebration of Christ’s birth and the deep mystery of the incarnation which transcends the arrival of baby Jesus.1

Regardless of your present family customs and seasonal celebrations, one of the examples from the legends of St. Nicholas that can be transposed by us today is the way Nicholas gave, namely, without looking for recognition, repayment, or reward. This giving without self-interest is what the New Testament refers to as agapic love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes: “Agape is disinterested love. It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor (1 Cor. 10:24). Agape . . . begins by loving others for their sakes.” Dr. King emphasizes that agapic love expects no good in return.2 

What sets St. Nicholas the Giver apart is that he was a secret giver. How different the spirit of his generosity from personal or corporate donors today who give on the condition that they be given recognition or that their names don the sides or tops of buildings or the names of their corporations flash as advertisements from hotels or stadiums.

Secret giving is neither joyless nor self-congratulatory. Quite the contrary. The secret giver is simply moved by deep sympathy for someone in need or because they enjoy being the conduit through which joy is brought to someone else’s joy knowing the recipient’s life will be enriched in a small or significant way.

It is also important to invalidate the assumption that the most generous people are those who give money, lots of money. While philanthropy is to be commended, one does not need much to give much. Nor does one need money to give. The fullest giving is when we put the fullness of ourselves into the gift whatever the gift given. If what is needed is money, give money. If it is a word of encouragement, give that. If it is a token of your gratitude, put yourself into that symbol or symbolic gesture. Secret giving is not meant to replace other forms of direct giving or public service.

Re-membering ourselves to St. Nicholas the Secret Giver can be an impetus to living our days with a spirit of generosity, an attitude of gratefulness for the many small gifts and big blessings we have received in our lives, an understanding of our power and privilege to give, and the intentionality to practice the art of secret giving. To give of oneself, no matter how seemingly small the gift, is an act of communion. Not an opportunity to accentuate the haves from the have nots, but rather an occasion to reach out from one’s own God-given humanity to the sacred humanity of another.

Instead of making light of legends of generosity and kindness because they lack facticity, perhaps it is more important and more helpful for us to see the source of these stories as being the human intuition that they carry archetypal truths about the human person fully alive. For example, might not the legends world over of St. Nicholas reveal the holy suspicion and audacious hope that each and all of us are endowed with the human capacity for munificence and the power to enrich, enliven, and exalt the lives of others?

The stories are plentiful and true of a person offering another a word of kindness, compassion, encouragement, or affirmation who unknowingly changed the direction of someone’s life or interrupted and stopped a person’s preconceived plans of suicide. What person who has ever received an unexpected or unfathomable gift, was not touched by it and better for it? What people who have suffered the consequences of being alive, suffered unjustly or through their own fault, been well-acquainted with grief, been down on their luck, made mistakes — big mistakes, known the spiral of addictions and self-blame, been desperately lonely, mercilessly bullied, publicly shamed, vulnerable, marginalized, endangered, or consumed with excruciating regrets — do not know the power of kindness given or the grace of a seemingly insignificant gesture offered when someone reaches out?

Who among us does not know or cannot imagine how receiving the humblest “No Special Occasion” or “Just Because” gift can lift our spirit? And what if during Advent we started a conspiracy in which we conspired with the spirit of St. Nicholas’ legendary generosity? We could call it The Great St. Nicholas the Secret Giver Conspiracy and Extravaganza (GSNSGCE). Ok, I admit, not the catchiest acronym, but nonetheless the action of secret giving might catch on if we include ourselves in the gift.

So co-conspirators, I invite you to join me in this practice of secret giving. Advent is a great season for it. Let us pay no heed to the Nay-Sayers, the Scrooges, and the Bah-Hum-Bugs. No one has to know, only those who receive the secret gift and then catch the ancient Bishop’s bug and do the same for someone else. We might start a movement, or a revolution, or a non-profit, or a prophet-like subversion of the cultural pattern of giving to get (even thank yous in return). We might further God’s dream coming true on earth as it is in heaven by practicing this basic characteristic of the reign of God.

Be creative: leave a basket of home-baked bread and a bottle of wine on some unsuspecting person’s doorstep. Type a note (with latex gloves of course), put it in the mailbox (with no return address of course, unless you want to write GSNSGCE) and mail a note of appreciation or affirmation or encouragement to someone you think could use it. Buy a book, a CD, tickets to a play or concert, and send them anonymously for someone to enjoy. Send a poem to someone, or a word of a donation to a worthy cause in their name without them knowing from whom it comes.

Unlike Santa Claus whom many claim to have outgrown, perhaps we might recover and never outgrow the mythic, spiritual, and transformative example of St. Nicholas the Secret Giver whose covert generosity and well-known concern for the most vulnerable reflect the graced action of God’s heart. Mueller Nelson writes: “We have a long tradition of seeing the Godliness in the person of our saints and we have traditionally turned to them to inspire us and point us in the direction of the heavenly mysteries.”2 May we be so inspired to transpose Bishop Nicholas’ hidden and holy inclinations.

ENDNOTES

1 Martin Luther King, Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row Oublishers, Inc., 1986, p. 19.

2 Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration. New York: Paulist Press, 1986, p. 81

Artwork: © Robert Lentz 1986