Christmas 2
Christmas is meant to be about good will towards your fellow man, charity towards the poor and unfortunate, and peace on earth. But is it? And has it ever been? It seems to me that Christmas has become a cynical, commercialized thing, manipulated by marketers and centered around the bottom line. TBS is showing the movie A Christmas Story over and over again today, a 24-hour marathon. Why is this movie so funny? Think about it. cynicism isn’t funny unless we can relate to the dark humor. Christmas has become merely the empty shell of the promise it once held; it is something to be laughed at.
And I laugh at it myself. I have been a Christmas cynic for five years, at least; possibly longer. At my age…well let’s just say that I’m far too young for that. A couple of years ago I was having a particularly rough time and I told my shrink something along the lines of this:
“Christmas is supposed to be relaxing or something. But it isn’t; it’s the opposite. Yet they call it Christmas vacation!”
I’ll admit it. It makes me sick to hear about Christmas sometimes. St. Nicholas is ok sometimes but I’ve come to hate Santa Claus. And not only is the commercialism disgusting, but it seems such a cheat to sing of peace on earth when there is nothing of the sort.
And yet there is, every Christmas, for me at least, one moment when the fog of commercialization is cleared away (by something better and brighter than Rudolph’s nose could ever get), and my heart is gently soothed, my spirit refreshed, by a glimpse of something real. One year it might be seeing the annual production of A Christmas Carol down at the Playhouse in the Park; another year it might be watching the movie Little Women while cuddled down under the blankets on the couch with my sisters; another year, singing carols in church on Sunday. This year, it is a poem I came across by Madeleine l’Engle. It is a relevant now as when she wrote it on Christmas Day in 1973.
The Risk of Birth
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out and the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
May we each by our lives make the earth a little less commercialized; make the earth a marginally better place for Love to be born: a little more just, a little more charitable, a little more merciful, a little more peaceful. And may Love be born again in all our hearts this blessed Christmas Day. In spite of all that’s wrong and ugly in the world, may Hope reign on her thrown for just one day; hope for a Christmas, some time in the future, that is better and brighter than the one we keep today; a night that is truly Holy.
Merry Christmas, everyone! And peace on earth, good will towards men.
