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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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There are hotels and there are hotels, but there are few in the world that can compete with the Greenbrier in little White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. You could travel east from Roanoke in the opposite direction around the globe and by the time you reached the Greenbrier you would have visited no finer facility, nor enjoyed a more superior atmosphere of friendly service.

It is truly "world class" in every respect.

Including the price.

I wouldn't be able to share a single detail about the Greenbrier if it weren't for some friends of my parents. Two months before my wife and I were married we purchased the house in which we now live. Being in our late 20s, it took everything we had and more. One thing was certain, the island honeymoon was out the window. After closing on the house two weeks before the wedding, we had exactly $347 to our soon-to-be shared name.

I remember the figure because I worked hard trying to plan some sort of honeymoon based on that amount. After examining numerous strategies, I decided the best option was to head to Nags Head, N.C., and stay as long as the money held out.

It was not a plan I was unaccustomed to.

But, alas, we were rescued by the aforementioned parental friends, who upon hearing we had canceled our honeymoon plans, offered up their villa at the Greenbrier as a wedding present. I know it's the "thought" that counts, and we'd all do well to remember that now at Christmas, but I must confess I was liking Mr. and Mrs. Pinkard's "thoughts" a great deal more than the dining room fare my soon-to-be wife was raving about.

As it turned out, The Greenbrier was everything it was reputed to be and more. We laughed and dined our way through four glorious days and nights on our "paltry" $347. Staying at the Greenbrier on such an amount is not a feat likely to be repeated soon. If you were to book a room tonight it would cost you a cool $277 and change.

Per person.

Per night.

"That is, of course, not inclusive of the 16.5 percent lodging tax, $46.64 service charge and 15 percent gratuity, Mr. Revercomb."

"Yes, I see ..."

I am all too familiar with these numbers, as it never occurred to me that acceptance of this original gift, kind though it was, would bring with it a subtle "wifely" expectation that we might return on certain "big" anniversaries. (Take note ye soon-to-be wed young men: Natural Bridge offers a lifetime of savings if you can convince her to go -- and by the way, if you don't think all anniversaries are big in some way, try forgetting one sometime.)

We were married in 1990, so you can guess where our July paychecks were spent this year.

The only other hotel I have stayed in recently was quite a contrast to the Greenbrier. The Tower Circle Motel in downtown Hatteras, N.C., falls a wee bit short of the plush carpeted foyers of "America's Resort." In fact to use the word plush in the same sentence as the Tower Circle is to risk breaking some sort of unspoken literary and perhaps even cosmic rule. Surely the saints raise their eyebrows in anticipation of what sort of comment is to follow.

Suffice to say it's a flea bag.

But it's a good sort of flea bag and there aren't any fleas, of course. There may be other critters about, but on this trip, at least, I didn't see any. The Tower Circle serves fisherman -- the hearty kind -- and it suits its purpose well, as does the Greenbrier, but neither facility caters to the folks that might normally frequent the other.

If you were to approach the Greenbrier with the $38 required to bunk up at the Tower Circle you'd have about enough to tip the doorman and the bell hop and then buy a piece of that fancy chocolate with the big "G" stamped on the top. After that, your stay would be mostly over, although I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you looked around a bit on your way out.

If, on the other hand, you confused your itinerary and visited the Tower Circle Motel with a Greenbrier budget in hand you could stay the better part of two months. Fish cleaning table included. It's even likely that owner, Jack Gray, might cut you a deal based on volume. Rates are generally negotiable at the Tower Circle.

But exactly 2,000 years ago in a small desert town in the foothills of Israel, rooms and rates weren't negotiable. A couple of half broke, hick teenagers from a rural backwater called Nazareth were in search of a room anywhere, anyhow. A generally clean place like the Tower Circle would have been beyond their imagining.

The owner of just such an inn had no room at his "flea bag," but he was willing to let them use the shack out back. It was filled with old equipment and the animals that the guests of the motel had brought with them that night. There was just enough straw to last the animals until morning. It was tax time and everyone was watching their dimes. Perhaps Joseph looked on the bright side of the situation: by staying the night in the "manger," at least they were saving some shekels.

Mary, of course, knew that a miracle was in the making. As it began to unfold before her, she, of all people, must have laughed knowingly. It would be here that she would have the child. Among the lowly beasts and soft grime of an animal barn. It all made sense now as she pondered the short history of her people and the miraculous and unexpected ways in which God had acted among them.

Perhaps the cold night air kept her mind lucid and clear as the pains began and she couldn't help but wonder what would become of this child. If his birth was to be in such a place, in such a way, what would his life be like? Was the child inside her, so ready to be born, really the "Christ" as the angel had spoken? It all must have seemed so unreal, so improbable. So unlikely.

Pretty much as it still does today.

But the angels still speak if we will but listen for them. Rarely in the ways that we might wish they would, but they do speak nevertheless. Perhaps it takes a heart that is something like Mary's to hear them. A heart that is quiet and hopeful and open to the miraculous and unexpected reality of a God that somehow can't help but love us -- in spite of the way we treat our selves and each other.

So this Christmas Eve, take a moment after all the "details" have been completed and step into the cool night air outside your "manger" -- wherever in the world that happens to be. Breathe quietly and listen for the silence that is, if not the voice of angels, something of the Spirit that speaks of such wonders. And ponder in your heart, as Mary did in hers, the most unlikely miracle that is the ultimate gift of God's forgiveness. The gift of himself. The gift of the Christ Child.