He struggled along the uneven path with the rain misting rather than falling about him. The land rolled in deep greens and dark browns, occasionally dropping away to splashes of gray blue topped with white foam from the winds driving the sea toward the sand and rocks below.

He approached a small weathered church, pushed open its door, stepped inside and leaned his back against the door until it closed. He remained there for a moment, breathing heavily while his eyes adjusted to the murkiness, then patted his pockets and pulled out a match. He picked up a candle from a table beside the door, lit it and began to make his way unsteadily toward the altar, occasionally resting a hand on the back of one of the rough wood pews that lined either side of the aisle.

Outside the wind wailed and the rain began to pelt against the windows with a sharp rattle. Instinctively he cupped a hand around the candle, but it flickered only from his movements as he tipped it toward a row of other candles placed about the altar. Soon the sanctuary glowed with a warm circle of light that grew less hesitant as the evening darkened.

He removed a small metal flask from his pocket, took a long swallow, wiped his mouth and moved to a rickety pulpit. Reaching underneath he brought out a worn Bible and ran his hand slowly across it.

He was an old man, gray stone chiseled, chipped and flecked with veins of white marble. He was a relic scoured with the elegiac elements of Wales; an orphan by deceased possibility wandering wayward; a survivor from a spectral ship, washed ashore on splintered wood. He retired from the clergy after forty years to a small remote cottage along the Llyn Peninsula, where he’d discovered an aging, abandoned church to which he would trudge most Sundays to wrestle with his spirit, sound the depths of his soul, and speak words wrung from the Jacobian struggle to a parish of ghosts.

"Let us speak tonight of all nights, if we dare, about our disappointment with God." His voice drifted out through the empty church, settling like dust in the corners. "It is a time when Handel’s libretto echoes the majestic theme of a people who walk in darkness having seen a great light.” He turned slightly and looked at the cross hanging in half shadow on the wall. "But what of those who walk on paths of suffering and infirmity and despair? Is it blasphemy to mention the broken, the weak, the frail on a night that glistens with such comprehensive expectation?"

A burst of wind shook the church, a few candles flickered and the shadows wavered and grew. Suddenly the door at the back opened with a great swirl of rain and a chatter of earth scattering across the planked floor. A figure passed inside and then pushed hard against the door to close it again. The flames on the candles tugged, sputtered and went out, leaving thin curls of smoke vanishing into the gloom.

He stood surprised and silent for a moment, then called out, "Come in, come in." He struck another match and turned to the candles. "I don’t get many visitors."

When he turned around the figure had moved forward and was pushing a hood back with a hand. Her hair was ruffled and her eyes gleamed with caution and defiance. "I got caught in the storm and saw a light," she said flatly. "I hope I’m not interrupting anything."

He guessed she was in her early thirties, but there was a careworn look about her that made her seem older. “No interruption at all," he said. “My name’s Harry Welles."

"Hello." She brushed at her coat with her hand.

"Of course," Harry said with a slight smile, "no name is necessary. As you can see, most of my congregation prefers their anonymity."

She pulled at a glove. "So what are you, some kind of minister?"

Harry thought for a moment. "On my good days."

"And on your bad?"

"Ah, well then I am the very best of sinners. So you see, there’s a wonderful balance, each needing the other."

"Sure," she said, but without interest. "Well, I'll be leaving in a few minutes." She moved to one of the windows and rubbed a sleeve across the glass. "I suppose this weather will cut down on your attendance tonight."

"Actually, you’re one more than I was anticipating."

She turned to him. "You don’t have a congregation?"

"Not really."

Her eyes slid across the empty pews. "You preach to all of this, huh?"

"Yep."

"You know," she said with a raised eyebrow, "there are people who might think that sort of thing is a little…strange."

"Even crazy."

"Are you?"

Harry laughed. "Now how should I answer a question like that? There are too many things to consider, to ponder, to roll about in the great mysterious cavern of the mind, or to toss off the deep edge of memory and listen for it to strike bottom." He rubbed his nose. "But there, perhaps I've answered you after all."

"I think I see why this place is empty." She turned back to the window glazed with a fresh onslaught of rain. "That, and this godforsaken land. Why would anyone want to live here?"

"It looks better in snow," he said conversationally. "I’ve always like the snow. It’s one of those peculiar attachments one makes in life. For me the falling snow covers a broken world, and in those few precious hours of night when everything is still and snow fills the air with a soft flutter like doves and angels released, if I am fortunate enough to wander beneath it, I somehow feel as if it is an affirmation from God of the small difference I make in this life. Silly perhaps, but then so much is."

She continued gazing into the night. "Not that it matters particularly," she said, "but I don’t believe in God. I outgrew him about the same time as Santa Claus."

"Ah. I’ve often wondered at the effect of such a combined loss. From that perspective, Christmas must be a very empty time indeed."

"I manage," she said.

Harry absently thumbed the pages of the Bible. "Christmas seems to accentuate the loneliness we all feel. Being left alone can be terrible, but to be left alone without God, well surely that is Hell."

She brushed a hand through her hair. "Trying to save a soul?" she asked derisively.

Harry shook his head. "No, no saving of souls." His voice was suddenly tired. "No more trying to convince or entice. No magic, no miracles, no promises. No Lazarus coming forth at that spectacular instant of rebirth. Instead Lazarus after, long after, still subject to the commonplace, knowing the taste of death, knowing it must come again." He stopped. "I suppose that’s talking nonsense."

She said nothing but traced on the glass with her finger.

Harry patted the flask in his pocket and sighed, faintly, nostalgically. "I think most people celebrate tonight for what it promises, but to me this is a night that is especially for the lost."

He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. "I understand the lost very well now. I recognize them milling blurred gray in the jostling streets, or sitting silent in their rooms with fading afternoon light, or framed between the smiles of family and friends, reflected in mirrors, or even," he paused briefly, "when they walk through a door."

She glanced sharply at him but his eyes were on one of the darkened corners. "This is a night for those souls that are nearer Gethsemane than Bethlehem. For them, it is not the babe lying soft in fresh straw, but the man nailed and hanging from rough crossbeams of wood they understand." He smiled wearily. "And who pray understands them."

There was a long moment when it seemed that the very flicker of the candles echoed through the sanctuary. He looked at the woman standing on the edge of the shadows with her arms crossed.

"So He understand us," she finally said. He thought perhaps she could see him reflected in the window. "And what does that get us? How does that make us well or whole? You’d have a much easier time convincing people of all this if you made them a better offer. What about a God that wants them, wills them, to be rich and happy and successful. Water into wine, lead into gold. Now that’s my type of Savior."

"I’m afraid," said Harry slowly, "that is a lot of people’s type of Savior."

She turned. "You sound so disapproving. What’s wrong, don’t you want people to be happy? Isn’t that what this is all about? Silent night, peace on earth, believe and all your troubles will fade away, life will be full, and you’ll never get caught in the rain. There’s just one small catch, it’s not true. It’s a lot of brightly wrapped packages with nothing inside." Her eyes were dark and her faced flushed. "I’d much rather face life honestly than spend it hiding behind God."

The old church creaked in the wind.

"I agree," he said, noting her surprise and disappointment. "He’s no one to hide behind. It’s a very dangerous circumstance expecting to find God among the faces that are merry and full of expectation, among the crowd dazzled by the twinkling of a star in the east and the promise of easy lives. But that's God manufactured and dressed for the season, a God that fits the mood, but doesn’t interrupt our lives; a hedged bet against problems we expect him to remove, then speed us happily on our own way. It is God in our own image."

He rubbed his eyes. "This is a weary and troubled world, and tonight is not about the easy way out for us but the difficult and tragic way in for Him. No burning bush nor veiled voice in thunder and lightning on Sinai, but as a defenseless child. And it means," his voice was almost a question, "that God is no longer safe from us."

The candles flickered fitfully. He stared down at his hands.

"Pretty words."

He looked up.

"But they’re just words, aren’t they." Her eyes narrowed. "Tools of the trade. Turn a phrase and turn a head, isn’t that it? But your words are a little too dark, too discouraging, too obscure. You’ll scare people off, or maybe you already have. You should try something a bit lighter and more up tempo. Get into the Christmas spirit." She bit off a hollow laugh.

They stared at each other. He looked at her face and it was sad, and angry, and tired, and seemed very pale in the light falling across it. He felt self-conscious under her stare, and inadequate.

What can I do with this soul, he thought, swept in on wind and rain, standing in this church, yes, still a church for all its incense of dust and years drifted in banks about it. A midnight church of spirits, like Marley’s ghost rising to remind us of our peril. And here I stand making words in the sign of the cross, but with little else to offer.

His eyes dropped.

She watched him carefully and after a few minutes gave a faint cough. "I’m not," she said shifting her weight to one foot, "a very tactful person sometimes."

She moved to the window. "The rain’s letting up."

They were silent, as if listening for some faint footfall and a knock upon the door.

"Rain." His voice was low, his eyes shut. "I feel like rain sometimes. Rain, seeping into the ground, sinking deep into formless clay, becoming part of it and leaving a surface on which other’s footsteps will be seen. Dust to dust and under dust to lie, awaiting a shovel to pierce me, pry me from a gravel grip, the stone rolled away, flinging me into a leaden sky like funeral confetti to fall once again in Adam’s embrace to earth, as the soil from which something will grow." He opened his eyes and shrugged. "Just words again."

She smiled. "But pretty." Slowly she began to button her coat. "I think it’s time for me to get on my way."

Harry’s face fell. He smiled weakly. "Was it that bad?"

She laughed quietly.

"So you won’t stay to hear the end?"

She shook her head and pulled up her hood. "I never stay to hear the end." She walked slowly to the door and pulled it open, then paused and turned back to the old man who stood in the wavering light. "Doesn’t good-bye mean God be with you?" she asked.

Harry nodded.

She smiled, her eyes bright. "Merry Christmas, Harry," she said, and was gone.

For a long moment he stood staring at the closed door, then took the flask from his pocket and drank with hands that trembled. "So all of this is ended, and at the end are no more words."

He rubbed his hands over his face. "What a weary world it is, and so are those who are called to move along its shadows. Do not punish me Lord by taking my cross from me. For steel is iron with fire, and soil is rock with heat, and this world is desperate for those who will stay awake and not hide their faces at the sound of soldiers in the garden."

He paused, a great sadness in him now, as if newly come from a hill where a cross leaned with an awful weight. He turned and put out the candles, one by one, and gathered himself into his coat.

"The story is told of three boys who were asked their definition of faith." He walked slowly toward the door. "The oldest of them said, ‘It is taking hold of Christ.’ The second replied, ‘It is keeping hold.’ The youngest of the three thought for a moment then said, ‘It’s not letting go.’"

Harry looked back into the dark church. "And what if Christ had not come?"

The night was quiet and the rain had stopped. Clouds hung thick in a gray sky and his breath made frosted plumes. He plodded along the trail with the collar of his coat turned up.

He felt a soft sweep and brushed his eyelids with the back of his hand. Then another. Suddenly he stopped and looked about him, looked up, looked through the swirling winter moss filling the air with the soft flutter of doves and angels released.

He stood there for a long while, with his face toward the sky, with Christmas falling white across the sleeping towns, until he could no longer tell the difference between the snow and his tears.