LINDBERGH & THE QUIET OF CHRISTMAS

...They are both getting old, and she is so frail that we have not known how she could live through the last decade...

...Danke-schon...

...Symbolically, one of the final entries in his wartime journals speaks of the gift he would bring home to his beloved Anne-the book of "Nieder-deutsche Madonnen...

...It is difficult to look at them...

...5/23/45) A bit of taffy, a few days later at Nurnberg, snapped this pent-up tension: As I walked to our jeep, a boy and girl ran across the street and paused to look at us...

...Sometime I would like to have a Christmas in our home that conforms to the true spirit and significance of that day 2,000 years ago-a Christmas unadorned by tinsel, uncluttered by gewgaws and ribboned boxes, unstuffed by roast turkey and sweet potatoes...

...Lindbergh had wisdom to speak and meanings that keep because he remained always a man of reflection...

...We will not let her pass our sentries on the roads...

...and was, as you know he would be, wonderful...

...Another Christmas comes and wife Anne's crib becomes his cathedral...

...Our response to its challenge will indicate our future...

...And never mind that the Notre Dame was shut to him that Christmas...

...But in acting, one must be careful not to dull his senses by overwork, by too great and too prolonged concentration...

...Seven years before, Charles and Anne had lived through the agony of the kidnap-murder of their first-born, Charles Jr...

...It is a fine state of affairs in a country which feels it is civilized: people dislike what you do, so they threaten to kill your children...

...and I know they will help again this time-the madonna, a beautifully carved one, on the table beside the hospital bed, and the glasses-case in Anne's hand...

...These uncharted dimensions of the human spirit as symbolized in Jesus is why Lindbergh would have Christmas to be a true holy day...

...6/9/45) This unfortunate youngster probably never knew of Lindbergh's concern...

...The supersonic transport symbolizes this issue...

...They were probably between six and nine years old, thin, not very well dressed, and I judged, quite hungry...

...Charles Lindbergh was true to his work in making Christmas a day of recollection for his family-a walk in the woods with his wife and children was always part of the day, whether the current family address was New Jersey, Long Island, Michigan, or Massachusetts...

...to grip tightly when she is in pain...

...One needs roots, and those roots must have real soil to grow in and come back to...

...Anne has made a very simple and beautiful little creche in the library, and we had music and reading in front of it, with all the children taking part, except Scott, who is in bed with a fever...

...Not that he was infallible...

...The madonna and the glasses have taken part in the birth of Land and Anne, Jr...

...It dulls appreciation, not only of the presents, but of the day itself...

...They are hungry children...

...No dismay since he came not as a sight-seeing tourist but as a thoughtful pilgrim rejoicing in the quiet of Christmas: "Better to spend an hour in Notre Dame and the rest of the day thinking about it" was his viewpoint...

...I realize that we Americans are holding her at Dessau...

...Still, the same spirit of interior-ity that brought Charles to his convictions became the unfailing spring of courage to live by them: Of course, safety for my family lies in my keeping out of the public eye and the attention of the press...

...The birth and life of Christ were surrounded with things mystical...

...The legendary pilot who had figured his solo-flight fuel to Paris so precisely, had become lost in conversation en route to Manhattan...

...With a wife like Anne and children like Jon and Land, I probably should not ask for more-but it is really for them I want a home . . . (12/9/39) Achieving "home" was hazardous for Lindbergh since he was a national figure who stood by his personal principles in speech and in action...

...The keynote at the birth of Christ was simplicity...

...I feel ashamed...

...Christmas again...

...Home and family came first: Nothing is more important than one's home and all it represents...

...8/13/42) A Madonna for his madonna who "always seems to me to stand on life and, at the same time, touch something beyond it...

...Not that his spokesmanship was unerring: some of his statements on behalf of the America First Party were much too apodictic, while others touching the pre-war Hitler regime were too benign...

...We have perhaps driven men into the service of the machine instead of building machinery for the service of man...

...The French author-aviator had been the Long Island guest of the Lindberghs for a peaceful August weekend, one of the very last before the outbreak of World War II...

...Speaking to the supersonic transport controversy in the pages of the New York Times, he wrote: To what extent do we control our own destiny economically and environmentally...

...We have wanted for years a permanent home that we loved and now I must find one-but it is difficult to look clearly into the future in these unsettled times...

...People should not deluge children with presents on Christmas...

...The satisfaction of living, the effectiveness of thinking and acting, spiritual depth and appreciation, all are intertwined to a large extent with the home one lives in- not that these elements are impossible without a home, but they are lacking in balance...

...He saw to it that aging relatives got the lift that exuberant youth can bring: "In the afternoon Mother, Anne, Jon and I went to see Aunt Harriet and Uncle John...

...He once missed his flight to Albuquerque -the mark of humanity is that each of us in our time has missed our plane to "Alburquerque"-and he jumped at the opportunity to walk down a country road for reflection] The place didn't matter, but taking interior counsel was a covenant he had made with himself: Too much or too little activity blinds one to true values and to the real beauty of living...

...May we be so blessed and Christ's enduring peace be his, his family's-and ours...

...I had a taffy bar in my pocket, and tore it in half, giving part to each child...

...His preoccupying passenger in the old Franklin automobile that Monday morning was Antoine de Saint Exupery...

...They have never seen Jon, and children mean more than anything else to old people...

...Lindbergh, like Saint Exupery, was a quiet man-pensive...

...The war claimed the life of the French flier, as Lindbergh had feared: "That is the tragedy of war...

...Both men are gone now...

...We follow him and his young wife Anne to the Notre Dame of Paris one Christmas Day in the thirties-only to find it closed...

...Ex's recently written Wind, Sand, and Stars...

...They are not to blame for the war...

...She cannot flee to safety...

...I feel I must do this, even if we have to put an armed guard in the house...

...One must try as best as he can and then be satisfied with what he attains...

...This man of quiet could bring solace because his inner sensitivity made him keenly aware of the needs of others, young and old alike...

...There are tears in his pen when he senses the ominous fate of a young German girl of Dessau, a town being held in reserve by the Americans as booty for the incoming Russians: She has a good face-nicely dressed in old but clean and brightly colored garments-like the daughter of a middle-class American family...

...years to the month after their invigorating visit, Charles Lindbergh, conscious of the inroads of incurable cancer, flew to Hawaii where he laid his long frame to eternal rest in a chosen corner on the island of Maui-August 26, 1974...

...Charles Lindbergh could see because like Mary in the spirit of the first Christmas, he "pondered all things in his heart...

...We have more food than we need, but regulations prevent giving it to them...

...Their all-consuming discussion explored "the effect of industry and the machine upon man," the central theme in St...

...they snatched the candy and began eating it at once, not as children who want a candy bar, but as children who are hungry...

...The keynote of Christmas today is luxury...

...Down along the arc of years, the aviator of all seasons was echoing the sentiments of his war-lost friend in Wind, Sand, and Stars: "In the enthusiasm of our rapid mechanical conquests, we have overlooked something...

...Still we listen, since as Heidegger once remarked, "Only those can be silent who have something to say...

...It is impossible, and one would not even desire to always hold a perfect balance between action and contemplation, between earth and sky...

...Touch deadens after prolonged contact...

...For me, aviation has value only to the extent that it contributes to the quality of the human life it serves...

...It is pleasant to swing into one and back to the other as a pendulum, for one sees only by contrast...

...Home at 5:30 for Christmas Eve with children and Anne...

...Christmas and Christianity today are surrounded with things material...

...That is hard enough in normal times, but in a period of crisis in which one's country may become involved in war, one must take part in the affairs of his country and exercise his influence in the direction he thinks right...

...12/24/43) (When Anne was about to give birth to Scott, the careful commander briskly packed the necessaries and rushed off to the hospital: "I put the little wooden madonna and the glasses-case in my brief bag and left in the Mercury for the hospital at 3:20 a.m...

...But, his diary makes allowance for his distraction...

...Peter's College in Jersey City...

...Is the quality of life or the advance of technology to guide us...

...Men like Saint Exupery are killed, and the world had too few of them anyway...

...10/24/39) There is special poignancy in this last diary entry...

...It seemed we spent hours opening all the presents...

...Charles Lindbergh's gentle glance of kindness and care unveiled the vista to profound personal meanings that became their shared vision of life and love...

...What right have we to stuff ourselves while they look on-well-fed men eating, leaving unwanted food on plates, while hungry children look on...

...Ex in The Little Prince, held special attraction for the contemplative yearnings of Charles Lindbergh...

...There were too many of them, really, although we had hidden a few away, and will let others disappear during the next few days...

...What right have we to call Germans and Japanese barbarians when we treat women thus...

...One should eat too little rather than too much, see no one rather than everyone, spend it in silence rather than in communication...

...Ex of so many sunrises before...

...It should be almost the reverse of a modern Christmas...

...But, before the aging pioneer boarded that final flight, he made an excursion back to his "bridging" conversation with St...

...But, amidst these crosscurrents complicated by private convictions exposed to public notice, the family kept its equilibrium because its head had set a hierarchy of values- the prime benefit gleaned from his reflections in the mood of Christmas...

...I feel ashamed, of myself, of my people, as I eat and watch those children...

...But how I dislike the idea of Anne and Jon and Land living under such an environment...

...One feels only that which is new...

...a Christmas pure in its simplicity, akin to the sky and stars, of the mind rather than the body...

...The glowing bride-to-be's enthusiasm for her soon-to-be groom was prophetic in its intuition...

...His diary for December 25, 1940 reads: Anne and I spent the morning with the children-Jon, Land, and even Anne, downstairs in her mother's arms-beside the Christmas tree in the parlor...

...What responsibility has this child for Hitler and the Nazis...

...Then, thirty-five FATHER PHILIP MOONEY, S.J., is an associate professor of Theology and Fine Arts at St...

...To observe, to think, and to write well, one should act only enough to keep his senses sharpened and to avoid that theoretical, impracticable, narrow outlook of the man who never acts at all-the critic who speaks lightly and conceitedly of an art he never knew...

...but his focus was right: searching for eternal meanings in the changing tides of human affairs...

...I believe in his eyes, in what I think is behind them, even though it doesn't always show in conversation...

...She uses life to strengthen spirit and spirit to strengthen life...

...It seems to me that Christmas has deviated as much from the birth of Christ as Christianity has from his teachings...

...8/15/39) Significantly, the context of Christmas, as for St...

...One must avoid that practical, logical, material, mineral-like outlook of the man who knows nought but action as the answer to everything in life...

...Anne's own diary for that bleak day speaks of her husband's "patience and sweetness and silence...

...Though both pioneers are beyond the horizon, we appreciate the lingering accent of their perceptive comment...

...He spoke so beautifully and calmly about death that it gave me great courage...

...Christmas should be a day that brings one closer to God and to the philosophy of Christ...

...Charles never stared ("Beauty is lost in staring" was his expression) because his was a sympathetic regard coming from the deep-center of his person...

...The incessant and insistent claims urged upon the time and talent of America's foremost airman did, in fact, require many moves for the Lindberghs...

...When the final shock of the drawn-out tragedy struck in word that the child's body had been found, Anne Morrow Lindbergh managed these lines to her mother-in-law: "Charles got home last night about 2 a.m...

...12/30/39) The sight of children in need caused Charles particular distress...

...When exhilarant, bubbling Anne Morrow wrote her young sister the glad tidings of her engagement to Charles Lindbergh, she revealed that "if someone should pounce on me and ask me what I was marrying him for, I should say, 'Eyes'-can't look in his eyes and do anything else...

...It was the best Christmas Eve we have ever had...

...6/8/45) Lindbergh could have wished to heal every war-torn child...

...The pale waifs of a prostrate Germany, kept from nourishment by wooden bureaucracy, tore at his heart-strings: German children look in through the window...

...Yet, even in this severest of ordeals that God's providence asks of man, Charles's inner strength became the staying-power for his wife...

...We are turning her and thousands of others like her over to Soviet soldiers for their sport...

...He could step back from swirling involvement in a heavy schedule to probe and uncover the hidden significance beneath the surface veneer of daily events...