Is This the Year Christmas Finally Sticks? 11-30-10

Anderson, South Carolina

Throughout the world each year many of us become the least bit hopeful; wondering if this is the year Christmas finally ‘sticks’, if animosity, ego, willfulness, and violence of body and soul will finally be set aside for a better way. Epic tales abound from the harsh winter of 1914 in which trench warfare was set aside in the conflict devastating Europe. Soldiers tentatively emerged from their fox holes, wondering if this was going to be the year. Alas, command powers demanded soldiers return to the trenches, retake their arms, and continue killing those with whom they so recently celebrated Christmas. Some refused. Each year millions of churches try to add their tiny bit of polish to the luster of Christmas’ evanescent patina on our world.

Throughout chronicles of church history we find countless disquieting examples of violence being exacted upon others for the sin of thinking differently, for having different values. Great ‘heroes’ of the faith did everything from killing Irish women and children in the pillages of Cromwell to the gross betrayal and extirpation of the Aztec culture by Cortez, all in the name of some form of higher purer religion. Alas, one can easily second guess if religious practice in any form has positive net effect on our troubled world. There’s an ever-growing number of Westerners who doubt it. Plenty of Easterners are certain violent eradication of Western infidels will bring world peace, once everyone thinks and believes alike. Bifurcation of thought is rending the world into shreds of violence.

Here on the first day of the liturgical New Year, I again wondered, tentatively, if this is the year Christmas finally ‘sticks’, if animosity, ego, willfulness, and violence of body and soul will finally be set aside for a better way. On the first Sunday of Advent I wonder if Christmas is mostly myth, a hoped for re-emergence of Brigadoon from the dust of time. Will we move past the insane frenetic liturgical retailing of Jesus, instead granting the gifts of peace and serenity to one another? Will we embrace diversity of thought and sing carols of good will to each other, in the trenches of secular consumer life? At the end of the day, my optimism is feeling oxidized by strong whiffs of skepticism.

The powers that be in my church decided to celebrate the Advent season with a small exhibition of artwork created by parishioners. This montage of photographs, paintings, and drawings depicts The Peaceable Kingdom. In the ancient writings of Isaiah one finds in the ninth chapter a captivating image of life when Christmas finally ‘sticks’, when animosity, ego, willfulness, and violence of body and soul are set aside for a better way. The world is described as a place of ever increasing peace, justice and righteousness. Given what current events tell us this seems more the stuff of fantasy writers than crafters of inspired scriptures.

On this first day of Advent I made it my plan to contribute several bucolic images to the admixture hanging in the parish hall. While there I was to learn this is probably not the year Christmas finally ‘sticks’, when animosity, ego, willfulness, and violence of body and soul will finally be set aside for a better way. In the midst of casual conversation with parishioners pre-occupied with building advent wreaths, I was hanging my contributions to The Peaceable Kingdom. In the midst of this benign activity, violence was exacted upon me for the sin of thinking differently, for having different values. A casual comment from me about the folly of using legalized gambling as a way of supplying the public purse in the midst of declining tax revenues brought about a vitriolic outburst on the part of a parishioner that was stupefying in its spiritual and emotional violence. Was this really happening here in the parish hall of my little church on the first Sunday of Advent? Alas, it really was.

In a year’s time I’ve been in some of the most violent places on earth, including three cities cited by the State Department as ten places to avoid. The chaos that is the ruined capitol of Haiti, Port Au Prince is among these. Yet, in Port au Prince or in other precarious environments, I never felt violence of soul or person as I experienced this morning in our little parish hall, decorated with grand images of Peace. I was shaking like a leaf, close to meltdown. In my work this summer in at risk-environments I never once felt insecure or challenged. Is the violence exacted for my independent thinking any different than the violence exacted against Western infidels or the Aztecs? I am not thinking so.

Violence takes on many forms, some subtle, perhaps fertile ground for some of the more volcanic manifestations I seem to encounter. As one involved in community theater for years I know the dreadful feeling that comes when patrons get up and walk out on a performance, repudiating the talent and craft of those who dare to perform differently than they. It feels like an ultimate shunning, an act of violence, repudiation of everything we are about. Is it violent to walk out of a church service, leaving behind invited guests because the ‘performers’ don’t do it our way? Does legalistic adherence to one’s forms of religious practice supersede the warm accepting hospitality that might convince tentative inquirers this might be the year Christmas finally ‘sticks’, to embrace One called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God? Does insistence that others think, believe, and practice like me bring luster to Advent? I think not.

For thou shalt break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted soldier in the battle tumult, and cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders.