On a snowbound Pearl Harbor Day which canceled classes and even evening Encore arts, 11 people attended the inaugural Blue Christmas service Tuesday night at ACTION (All Churches Together in One Network) Ministries on Main Street.

The mood was decidedly more subdued with the peaceful singing of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” than last Friday night when the Chieftain Marching Band warmed up there before the Christmas parade, its drum line rattling plaster in the former funeral home.

Keynote speaker Terry Perkins, Borgess Lee-Memorial Hospital chaplain, recalled Dec. 7, 1941, and the Japanese attack on Hawaii which plunged the United States into World War II, and some other meaningful dates, such as President John  F. Kennedy’s Nov. 22, 1963, assassination in Dallas, Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day and personal meanings they convey to him.

“I remember exactly where I was on Nov. 22, 1963, at about noon,” Perkins said. “I was on the playground for lunch break. I lived about six blocks down from the Roman Catholic church school I attended,” though today he belongs to the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Hill Street.

“The bell rang and they brought all the kids in and told us what happened,” he said. “He was our first Catholic president so we prayed for him. I ran home and got a radio and all that afternoon we listened.

“I still remember that day because I lived through it. You young people will relive 9/11. I was sitting in a ministerial association meeting in a restaurant and was the only one in the group at the end of the table who could see the TV in the bar.

“I happened to look over and saw smoke coming out and I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what movie that is? I’ve never seen it.’ I recognized the Twin Towers” of the World Trade Center in New York.

“Two minutes later somebody said a plane ran into the Twin Towers,” Perkins said. “It wasn’t a movie! It was actual news going on. The meeting stopped.

“We have all these dates we remember. My mom was born on St. Patrick’s Day and married on St. Patrick’s Day — and I’m Irish — and she died on Valentine’s Day. Every Valentine’s Day is personal to me.

Perkins continued, “The Christian world has chosen Dec. 25, but I hope I don’t burst anyone’s bubble about this when I say there’s probably a really good chance Jesus wasn’t born on” Christmas Day.

“We have life and we have death,” he said. “There are only two possibilities. It’s okay to feel pain. We pick all these dates to remember and we especially remember when loved ones pass away. When did Jesus die? The Bible doesn’t say, though historians and scholars say they can pick the exact date — and they probably can. But the Bible doesn’t tell us that matters. We have all these dates and events that occur, but with Biblical events, the date doesn’t seem to be important, the event is what’s important.

Perkins contends that with Dec. 7, 1941; Nov. 22, 1963; 9/11; or when the Berlin Wall fell, “Those are important dates, but the event is more important because of relationships.

“When my mom died, I conversed with her dead body for 10 minutes, telling her how sad I felt. She was only 64 years old. I have a wife and two girls, but my mom used to be my valentine, so there’s still a tinge of sadness on Valentine’s Day because my mom was the love of my life, as much as I love my wife and daughters. The date I lost my relationship with my mom doesn’t really matter, but it hurts.

“The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35: ‘Jesus wept.’ We know enough about death to know that everybody dies. Lazarus died twice. Death hurts, even for the Creator. Everybody’s lost somebody. It hurts to lose a puppy or a dog, a pet. My wife Elizabeth cried so hard when Bojangles died because he was an indoor cat that went out and got hit. Death hurts, and we learn that lesson and it’s okay to express our feelings. Jesus the life-giver is going to raise this man up and He still takes time to weep over his friend who’s going to have life in just a few minutes. Imagine a Father who has lost billions of his children. In Revelations He wipes away our pain, our tears and our memories of this world. Holidays can be a very sad time, and it’s okay to feel that because death hurts, but don’t miss the celebration of life. If you’re a Christian and believe in the hope of Resurrection, I have faith I’ll see my mom and dad. It hurts now, but like the Bible says, death is a small sleep before eternity.”