A Christmas ... Something
As most everybody here probably knows, I don't post very often. The reason is that I never really feel like I have anything worthwhile to say. This isn't to knock anybody else, venting and twittering, and everything else that goes on here is a good and probably necessary thing for the people that do them, it's just that I can't shake the feeling of being horribly self-absorbed, boorish, and just plain boring whenever I try to do it. Believe me, I don't think of anybody else here as those things, in fact I enjoy reading about the little problems and victories of people's days, I just can't work up the nerve to participate myself.
So what happens is that I end up writing really long posts a couple of times a year. Most of the time, I don't even post those, because I get halfway in and get those same feelings of selfishness and boorishness and I toss it.
This one is going to be a little different.
Christmas is coming. That's a funny phrase, because we have this month of buildup, leading to one day which is usually quite anti-climactic. Ever notice that the "Christmas Spirit" promptly disappears on December 26th? Sure, the lights might stay up until New Years, but it seems like the focus on peace on earth and goodwill toward men goes away as soon as the stores reopen for the after-Christmas-get-rid-of-as-inventory-as-possible-before-we-have-to-pay-taxes-on-it sales the next morning.
The truth is, most of us are really celebrating the Winter Solstice more than we are Christmas. I'm sure it would amuse the atheists and the skeptics in the audience to know that Jesus of Nazareth wasn't born anywhere near December 25th. Truth is, he was almost certainly born in the spring sometime, hence the presence of shepherds working in the middle of the night - it was lambing season. December 25th was chosen by one of the early Vatican councils based on some sketchy numerology to give them an excuse to co-opt the traditional pagan winter solstice celebrations. Christmas wasn't even that big of a Christian holiday until Charles Dickens almost single-handedly elevated it with A Christmas Carol. Now, of course, it's the great capitalist holiday - a ready-made and perfectly cyclical reason to spend large amounts of money on toys and consumer electronics.
We get this in modern and post-modern commentary all the time. Denis Leary writes jokes about elevated suicide rates during the holidays. In my lifetime we've actually created two new holidays based completely on consumerism: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Why do we even celebrate the blasted thing?
And it's amusing to hear the reasons people come up with. "Family," like you couldn't pick a weekend in June when the weather is a hell of a lot better to have that potluck with the aunts and uncles. "Peace," like India and Pakistan are going to take a break just because it's December 25th. Even in the best and most well-known pop culture proponents of Christmas, the key ingredient is largely missing. Even in Dickens' work it's given short shrift in favor of four ghosts and an old man who doesn't want to die.
There is a reason, and nobody likes to talk about it because they're afraid of sounding ... well ... lobotomized, really. Or they're afraid if they bring it up the next thing they know they'll be stuck in the fifth ring of quilting bees with a bunch of the same church ladies they couldn't stand as a kid.
The reason is weird to most of us. It's completely contrary to what most of our experience tells us. The true reason challenges that paradigm thoroughly, and the beginning of understanding the true reason requires us to make that almost impossible leap of logic: that we are not the most important person in the universe. We are not even the most important person in our own lives. People sometimes try to make that leap and come up with the answer of family, which is actually right for partial credit, but still misses the most important part of the answer. Family is a series of personal relationships, and the true answer involves the most personal of relationships, but it's not with the family as it is commonly known.
Not only is the reason weird, it's offensive to large swaths of the population, and not just to the egoists. For all of the talk of peace and love, the reason is exclusive, and it doesn't bend on this point. That's why we're all really celebrating the winter solstice, not because the date for the other thing is wrong, but because acknowledging the real reason opens up a whole Pandora's Box of other implications for our lives.
I know there are a few atheists, skeptics, and people of differing worldviews on my friends list. I hope they've read this far, although I really wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. The true reason is heavy stuff. It's also quite silly, compared to the sum total of human experience with political science, sociology, and psychology. It's one big delusion with no testable, repeatable postulates. It's also been used as an excuse for some downright mean behavior in human history, but then again what hasn't been used as an excuse for mean behavior? From Buddhism to the San Diego Chargers, almost everything has been twisted into a reason for man to violate his fellow man in some form or another.
But for a minute, I'd like to ask you make the assumption that the reason is true. As distasteful as it might seem, just indulge me for a minute.
I'm sitting here, in my son's room as I write this, watching him sleep. He still has problems going to sleep on his own, and I don't mind a little extra time on the computer, so I sit for him a few nights each week. He's six, so he still thinks I'm the greatest guy in the world. He's a good kid, if a little flighty sometimes. I have to call his name several times to get him to listen most of the time, but at the end of the really tough days, as I sit down in the chair in his room, he comes to me and says, "I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time today." He wants to do better, and most of the time he does, but those times when he doesn't, he knows the pain he has caused, and he knows that the day is over, and he can't make it right anymore. All he can do is say that he's sorry, and he knows it, and he does it.
And it's always enough.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if the reason is false, then I really lose nothing by celebrating it. If the reason is false, I really lose nothing no matter what I do. But if the reason is true, as scary and distasteful as that might seem to some of you, if it is true then we have no idea of the joy that lies ahead of us, and all we have to do to get it is to be like Henry at the end of the day. I liken it to the eastern sky mere minutes before sunrise, when reds and purples and fantastic oranges glow ever brighter, as if they're preparing the sky for the sun. The idea of it alone moves me to tears, because even if it's false, it's the most beautiful idea ever conceived by mankind, but if it's true ... it's even more than that, it's the very definition of hope.
You don't have to give up your brain to do it, in fact, you're ordered not to. You don't have to agree with every distasteful dogma, or hang out with a bunch of people you don't even like for two hours a week. You don't lose your distinctiveness when you acknowledge the reason, in fact, your distinctiveness is prized more in this worldview than in any other.
So ends my sermon, I suppose. This is why I'm busting at the seams to make cookies. This is why I'm listening to "O Holy Night" and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" on loop right now. This is why I celebrate Christmas. You can think me a fool, or a sheep, or deluded, or escapist, or whatever else. Just know that come December 26, I'm still going to be holding the door for people, listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and occasionally grinning for no apparent reason.
So what happens is that I end up writing really long posts a couple of times a year. Most of the time, I don't even post those, because I get halfway in and get those same feelings of selfishness and boorishness and I toss it.
This one is going to be a little different.
Christmas is coming. That's a funny phrase, because we have this month of buildup, leading to one day which is usually quite anti-climactic. Ever notice that the "Christmas Spirit" promptly disappears on December 26th? Sure, the lights might stay up until New Years, but it seems like the focus on peace on earth and goodwill toward men goes away as soon as the stores reopen for the after-Christmas-get-rid-of-as-inventory-as-possible-before-we-have-to-pay-taxes-on-it sales the next morning.
The truth is, most of us are really celebrating the Winter Solstice more than we are Christmas. I'm sure it would amuse the atheists and the skeptics in the audience to know that Jesus of Nazareth wasn't born anywhere near December 25th. Truth is, he was almost certainly born in the spring sometime, hence the presence of shepherds working in the middle of the night - it was lambing season. December 25th was chosen by one of the early Vatican councils based on some sketchy numerology to give them an excuse to co-opt the traditional pagan winter solstice celebrations. Christmas wasn't even that big of a Christian holiday until Charles Dickens almost single-handedly elevated it with A Christmas Carol. Now, of course, it's the great capitalist holiday - a ready-made and perfectly cyclical reason to spend large amounts of money on toys and consumer electronics.
We get this in modern and post-modern commentary all the time. Denis Leary writes jokes about elevated suicide rates during the holidays. In my lifetime we've actually created two new holidays based completely on consumerism: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Why do we even celebrate the blasted thing?
And it's amusing to hear the reasons people come up with. "Family," like you couldn't pick a weekend in June when the weather is a hell of a lot better to have that potluck with the aunts and uncles. "Peace," like India and Pakistan are going to take a break just because it's December 25th. Even in the best and most well-known pop culture proponents of Christmas, the key ingredient is largely missing. Even in Dickens' work it's given short shrift in favor of four ghosts and an old man who doesn't want to die.
There is a reason, and nobody likes to talk about it because they're afraid of sounding ... well ... lobotomized, really. Or they're afraid if they bring it up the next thing they know they'll be stuck in the fifth ring of quilting bees with a bunch of the same church ladies they couldn't stand as a kid.
The reason is weird to most of us. It's completely contrary to what most of our experience tells us. The true reason challenges that paradigm thoroughly, and the beginning of understanding the true reason requires us to make that almost impossible leap of logic: that we are not the most important person in the universe. We are not even the most important person in our own lives. People sometimes try to make that leap and come up with the answer of family, which is actually right for partial credit, but still misses the most important part of the answer. Family is a series of personal relationships, and the true answer involves the most personal of relationships, but it's not with the family as it is commonly known.
Not only is the reason weird, it's offensive to large swaths of the population, and not just to the egoists. For all of the talk of peace and love, the reason is exclusive, and it doesn't bend on this point. That's why we're all really celebrating the winter solstice, not because the date for the other thing is wrong, but because acknowledging the real reason opens up a whole Pandora's Box of other implications for our lives.
I know there are a few atheists, skeptics, and people of differing worldviews on my friends list. I hope they've read this far, although I really wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. The true reason is heavy stuff. It's also quite silly, compared to the sum total of human experience with political science, sociology, and psychology. It's one big delusion with no testable, repeatable postulates. It's also been used as an excuse for some downright mean behavior in human history, but then again what hasn't been used as an excuse for mean behavior? From Buddhism to the San Diego Chargers, almost everything has been twisted into a reason for man to violate his fellow man in some form or another.
But for a minute, I'd like to ask you make the assumption that the reason is true. As distasteful as it might seem, just indulge me for a minute.
I'm sitting here, in my son's room as I write this, watching him sleep. He still has problems going to sleep on his own, and I don't mind a little extra time on the computer, so I sit for him a few nights each week. He's six, so he still thinks I'm the greatest guy in the world. He's a good kid, if a little flighty sometimes. I have to call his name several times to get him to listen most of the time, but at the end of the really tough days, as I sit down in the chair in his room, he comes to me and says, "I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time today." He wants to do better, and most of the time he does, but those times when he doesn't, he knows the pain he has caused, and he knows that the day is over, and he can't make it right anymore. All he can do is say that he's sorry, and he knows it, and he does it.
And it's always enough.
Ladies and Gentlemen, if the reason is false, then I really lose nothing by celebrating it. If the reason is false, I really lose nothing no matter what I do. But if the reason is true, as scary and distasteful as that might seem to some of you, if it is true then we have no idea of the joy that lies ahead of us, and all we have to do to get it is to be like Henry at the end of the day. I liken it to the eastern sky mere minutes before sunrise, when reds and purples and fantastic oranges glow ever brighter, as if they're preparing the sky for the sun. The idea of it alone moves me to tears, because even if it's false, it's the most beautiful idea ever conceived by mankind, but if it's true ... it's even more than that, it's the very definition of hope.
You don't have to give up your brain to do it, in fact, you're ordered not to. You don't have to agree with every distasteful dogma, or hang out with a bunch of people you don't even like for two hours a week. You don't lose your distinctiveness when you acknowledge the reason, in fact, your distinctiveness is prized more in this worldview than in any other.
So ends my sermon, I suppose. This is why I'm busting at the seams to make cookies. This is why I'm listening to "O Holy Night" and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" on loop right now. This is why I celebrate Christmas. You can think me a fool, or a sheep, or deluded, or escapist, or whatever else. Just know that come December 26, I'm still going to be holding the door for people, listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and occasionally grinning for no apparent reason.