Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Cyrus, the Great Camel, Introduced

For weeks I have been a cameleer, trying desperately to herd a camel named Cyrus. Not through the Sahara or the Mojave or any other desert. No, I am simply trying to get this long-legged, ungainly creature to gently move through the pages of a Christmas short story.

But Cyrus is cranky. Like all other camels, he seems to dislike everybody and everything, even other beasts of his own kind. He has never learned to obey orders. He will kick and spit and bite. That’s just born in him and there seems no way to ever beat it out.

It is a known fact that when dealing with any creature -- man or beast -- more can be accomplished with sugar than with vinegar; so I tell Cyrus again and again that he is great. The greatest camel in all the East! He can see the wind. He can smell water for miles. He feels the sand storms, days before they come. Besides all that, he was named for Cyrus the Great, powerful ruler of the Medes and the Persians.

In addition to these things, I have explained to Cyrus that he is most fortunate, because the plot of the Christmas story calls for him to make a fantastic journey in a caravan with three Kings of the East. These kings will be following a strange new star and searching for a Child born to be the Great King, ruler of a kingdom that has no end.

But Cyrus says that he will not make this journey-- not for 40 kings or a million stars. “I’m staying right here in the Land of Sheba,” he declares-- on page three.

On page six, Hadad, a cameleer the three kings have engaged to go on the journey, has a dream in which he becomes a famous astrologer. “Ah,” I thought, “why not let Cyrus have a dream that will convince him to travel with the kings!”

The result goes as follows:

Cyrus, too, dreamed a dream. In it, he was the lead camel of a huge caravan, trudging across a burning desert and over dreary wastes of rocks and shifting sands.

Night came, but the caravan did not stop.

“Look up in the sky!” shouted the cameleers. “The strange new star is as bright as the high-noon sun! Let us travel on!”

Cyrus looked up and there was the strange new star, brilliant and beautiful. Not far from the star -- but higher in the sky -- he saw a phantom caravan of many camels, gliding over sands that had turned to clouds. The camels were gleaming white, their saddles made of purest gold. Yet they bore no riders nor burdens of any kind.

The lead camel spoke to Cyrus:

“My son,” he said, “be an obedient beast. Go on the journey with the three kings. Go willingly. Go gladly.

“You will behold the Holy Child King. He will come meek and lowly, yet like no other child of woman born. All camels, all creatures, all kings shall bow down before him. He shall be the Star King, the Great King.”

The phantom lead camel called out again:

“Go on the journey, my Son. Go.”

And the caravan passed behind thick clouds.

Cyrus is still sleeping. Surely, when he wakes, he will tell me that he has decided to join the caravan of the kings. If he doesn’t, I have one more thing to offer him. It is this:

At this stage of the story, it is possible to arrange for him to carry on his hump, not a heavy load of provisions, but the treasures which the Kings of the East will present to the Child King in Bethlehem.

Why am I telling you about Cyrus?

It is because each year at about this time, here at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and all over the Christian world, thousands and thousands of people begin preparations for a momentous journey to seek the One who is born King. Let us join this great caravan, and take treasures, and follow the star, and find the Christ Child, once more.

(Note: See the story “Cyrus, the Great Camel” elsewhere on this website. Pagination will differ from that given above. —Ed.)

Published November 1986. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.