PAUL HARVEY’S CHRISTMAS STORY: “THE MAN AND THE BIRDS”
AS TOLD BY PAUL HARVEY ON ABC RADIO
Paul Harvey was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast News and Comment on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays. He was well-known also for his famous The Rest of the Story segments. Paul Harvey may very well have been one of the twentieth century’s greatest gifts to broadcasting.
His demeanor, his voice, and above all else his wit graced the airwaves all across America. On or near Christmas, every year, Harvey shared with his listeners a particular essay in story form. The words, Harvey openly confessed, were not his own. For years he, and his family, searched for the original author…but they were never able to trace its origin.
It was told as only Paul Harvey could tell it; the story aired for the first time over ABC Radio, on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2004.
He introduced it by saying, “Unable to trace its proper parentage, I have designated this as my Christmas Story of the Man and the Birds. You know, The Christmas Story…the God born a man in a manger and all that escapes some moderns, mostly, I think because they seek complex answers to their questions, and this one is so utterly simple. So, for the cynics and the skeptics and the unconvinced, I submit a modern parable.”
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Now the man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge; he was a kind, decent, mostly good man…generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men, etc. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He told her he would feel like a hypocrite; that he’d much rather just stay at home…but, that he would wait up for them. And, so he stayed and his family went to the Midnight Service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window and watched as the flurries got heavier and heavier. He then went back to his fireside chair and began to read the newspaper.
Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…then another, and then another—sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. It would provide a warm shelter…if he could direct the birds to it.
Quickly he put on a coat and galoshes, and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then, he realized, that they were afraid of him!
“To them”, he reasoned, “I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how?”
Any move he made tended to frighten and confuse them…they just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. “If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm…to the safe, warm barn.
“But, I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear, and understand.”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing “Adeste Fidelis”…hearing the bells peal the glad tidings of Christmas. And, he sank to his “knees” in the snow. [Now he understood].
- As told by Paul Harvey
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And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NASB
Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. 1 Timothy 3:16 NIV
What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because He suffered death for us, He is now “crowned with glory and honor.”
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Acts 2:21 NIV
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If you liked this story and would like a copy of either of my books,
they are available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format:
If you have a story or testimony that you think might bless others,
I invite you to send it by email to me (Kenneth Kersey) at godsotherways@me.com.
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