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The children of Pathway always enjoy the spirit of Christmas and love to wear their most colourful dresses and greet all their friends, teachers, parents and other visitors who gather in large numbers when Christmas is celebrated at Pathway as usual with great enthusiasm and gaiety on a grand scale. Considerable preparation, considerable pondering and countless consultations go behind scene before thoughts and ideas are crystallized regarding the exact events to be put on this great day by the children. Lot of efforts, lots of energy and plenty of preparation go hand in hand for over two months before the final act is put together. Great care is taken to include as many children as possible for these festivities; many items are suggested and examined with reference to the individual talents, such as dances, fancy dress events, dramas, etc. Believe us, final selection of events is no easy task, as every item presented for the selection appears to be highly and equally loveable, with the hilarious result that every child wants to undertake and dress and act every part! During this Christmas celebrations it was finally agreed to stage the following events. A beautiful welcome dance by children who attend the physiotherapy unit at pathway. All these children turned out to be exquisitely lovely; they all had physical disabilities but that did not in any way spoil their enthusiasm and gusto or their spirit to overcome and conquer. A group of 7 children finally formed the welcoming troupe. These angles were dressed in their flowing gorgeous silk and satin dresses, they all danced a great number -a lovely melodious welcome song with each child holding a plaque card depicting a letter from the word WELCOME, positioning themselves in perfectly trained order. All the children danced and swayed to the rhythm of the music and the audience too joined with them with great love and appreciation and enthusiasm. The untiringly dedicated pair of teachers, Rani and Subbalakshmi, have been painstakingly and patiently shaping the youngest ones at Pathway - the children who belong to the 'Activities of Daily Living" Group', consisting of Divya, Shakila, Prabhu, Manigandan, Rajesh, Gayathri, Kannan, Mercy, Precilla, John and others. They presented a lovely and an attractive dance by these children, as many as 24 children belonging to this particular group, dressed up in terrific colours and designs that would have been the envy of the latest costume designers in Paris or any other capital, and they all danced with such boundless energy and overflowing joy. Because the song had a very popular film-song tune drawn from one of their superstar idols, with words that conveyed great love for children. Then came a dance-drama by Kesavan and Suji in Bharathanatayam style with perfect colourful costume on the same theme, namely, childhood and its innocent joys, and what the adults have to learn from children in order to make the world a safer and better place to live in future. The background music was simply superb and scintillating. The Nativity play was the grand finale which created the maximum interest and absorption and joy to the entire audience, concluding with Santa Claus singing jolly Jingle bells........ I sat in the front row of the audience adjusting my own poor hearing aid and my black extra-thick spectacles again and again to hear and see and catch every sound and scene without missing anything. Thaneermalai, Veena, Balakumar, Murugan, Kumar, Lakshmi, Mani, Venkat, Vydyanathan, Muthu, Sarasu, Vijay, and others participated in the final singing. I noted down the names carefully from the teachers, for I wanted to thank them individually afterward and tell them how much it had all meant to me. Indeed my life had become different. The Gospels speak with a sublime simplicity of the events surrounding the Birth of the Savior. The coming of Christ was so quiet and gentle and solemn. Mary gave birth to her first-born Son and quietly wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger because,...... because there was no room for them in the inn. That is the saddest line in the History of mankind, that particular line: there was no room in the inn for Baby Jesus and His Parents. He who came to house all mankind came among the poorest and the littlest. In the context of the greatness of that stupendous event we would have expected great fanfare and frolic. Whatever fun and frolic Baby Jesus might have missed at that first Christmas was amply made up and provided now by the children of Pathway through their own Santa Claus Show. Scholars continue to argue if there ever was a Santa, but Christmas celebration will never be complete without him. Pathway Celebration held a special message for me, wiping out my chronic habitual depression, (I had been needing drugs to combat it) - about my own infirmities and inferiorities, and suddenly now I felt a great need to thank the Lord profusely for everything, particularly for blessing me to participate in this Christmas celebration by Pathway children. I was overwhelmed with a strong emotion and I spoke to Prasad wiping my tears with my kerchief. He had given me a magazine ENSIGN to browse while we were having refreshments. Elder David B. Haight, in his article of that NOVEMBER 1998 issue says: "With the blessings of Heaven and with a special, built-in nurse that I have to take care of me and a loving family, I'm doing quite well. I appreciate and am mindful of the pacemaker that I have for my heart, which comes in quite handy. And I have a remodeled hip and renovated knee that I consider just dandy. My updated hearing aid and special glasses are quite a find, But, oh, how I miss my mind!, etc etc.... The Savior said, Whosoever findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it!" I didn't need a pacemaker yet and my hipjoints and kneejoints were in place, and hopefully I still had a mind of my own, but I had never really understood that last sentence above, though I had heard it quite many times, or in any case I wouldn't have been able to explain in words its meaning to anybody. It sounded like a paradox. Frankly, it never made sense to my mind. Ensign article explained: As we live in the materialistic world, we are concerned only with the materialistic things; we think of all we can gather and accumulate for ourselves. We are not thinking of others, we are not living to help other people to LIVE ON A HIGHER PLANE. The Lord is saying that when you find the life that He exemplifies, then you lose your self-centered existence. When we are concerned about doing something for someone else, helping someone to move to a higher plane, morally-physically-spiritually-materially, sharing, coming to their aid, rescuing, then you really find the life, the Blessed New Life the Savior speaks about, with the eternal blessings. The children of Pathway had really moved me into a higher plane. When the visitors were taking leave I drew Prasad aside for a moment and inquired in a whisper, Please tell me, can I come regularly and do some work here, to get out of my drab existence? Why not, he responded, we need you! Praise the Lord, and thank Him. ------Selvam
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