Albrecht Durer was born in a large and poor German family in which two sons wished to become artists, Albrecht and Albert. According to tradition, the family was too poor to allow both brothers to attend the academy in Nuremberg where they would learn art, so the brothers decided that one would support the other and then, when the first became a well-known artist, they would reverse roles.
Albrecht won the coin toss and his brother worked in a mine to support him. At the school, Albrecht achieved immediate success, where his etchings, woodcuts, and paintings were generally better than the works of his professors. Albrecht earned considerable fees from his works.
After completing his studies, Albrecht returned home to allow his brother to leave and pursue his art career. Albrecht informed his brother of the situation, but his brother began to cry and mutter, "No, no, no." When asked why he was crying, the brother responded by holding up his bruised and broken hands which were so damaged from working in the mine that he could hardly hold his mining tools, let alone the tools of an artist. Albrecht was dumbstruck. He then immortalized his brother's sacrifice with a series of drawings of hands (seen above).Touching, right?? Well even if you don't think so, you should be aware by now that I kind of have a thing about hands, so this story hit my sentimental bone pretty hard when I first read it. Excited to learn more about Albrecht and the rest of his [obviously very saint-like] life, I looked him up online. I read a few biographies, and none of the information in them seemed to match up very well with the story, which was weird. Then, I found this rendition of the above story on about five different websites, copied and pasted word-for-word. I was sensing an urban legend...
And I was right, dangit.
However, if we overlook the falseness of the story, it's still pretty touching. And I'm not often opposed to overlooking the falseness of a story because I had an English teacher in high school who taught us that a story doesn't have to be "true" to be true. If you can take something from a story that betters your life and you as a human, then who cares if those particular events ever occurred or not? (Por ejemplo: why does anyone in the world claim that we can learn so much about life from Harry Potter when we all acknowledge that it's completely false?)
So I present this loosely factual story to you as one based also loosely in the spirit of Christmas. I have had a struggle getting into the Christmas season this year, and I'm really not sure why, but I spent today putting together a package for my best friend who's on a mission right now, and I wrote to her, "I hope you get to really feel close to Christ as you represent him this year." And then I thought to myself, "Why shouldn't I make that happen for myself as well? Why haven't I already done this??"
It almost shocked me how much more Christmas-y I felt when I deliberately thought about the main point of this holiday. Presents and parties and planning are apparently stressful and obnoxious enough for me to drop all thoughts of Jesus, but I hope I can choose to turn that around for the remainder of this month. I want to be like Albrecht's brother, willing to sacrifice what I have for whomever I love. I want to go even further and make an effort to love and serve those beyond and outside of my family. I also want to be like Albrecht, openly appreciative and loving toward those who have sacrificed for me.
Basically, I want to find a way to share the gift of Christmas spirit, of Christ's love and compassion and charity, far and wide. I'll report back if anything amazing happens.
And in the meantime, I'll spread that Christmas spirit in this little space of the internet by saying this: I know that Jesus Christ came to Earth to fulfill a great work which would both set the example for and ultimately save each one of us. I know that his love for you is real and good and infinite, and I hope that you have a chance to feel it in the coming weeks.
Happy Christmas!
Image here.
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