If I Lost You

Merry Christmas, or What's in a Greeting?

It seems Christmas has become thoroughly.. multicultural. The debate over whether one should say "happy holidays" or not should finally come to an end. One should have no more difficulty saying "Merry Christmas" than Happy Thursday or Merry Wednesday, though hopefully with a greater twinkle in the eye.

A friendly detractor may say, yes but hasn't Christmas always been multicultural?  To this I must agree, but add that it was multicultural in a different kind of way.  Christmas has always been multicultural precisely because Christians have always been multicultural.  The multiculturalism I speak of today is different.  Now not only Christians celebrate Christmas, but non-Christians too, and these in far greater numbers than ever before.  It has led to the now common sighting of the little white and red signs in front of people's houses or on their cars which say "Keep Christ in Christmas".  There would be no need to make such declarations unless already Christmas was seen as existing outside the circle of Christianity.  How odd this is considering "Christ" is already in Christmas, literally forming part of the word.  

This marks a transition I have perhaps not so subtly referred to above when I use the greetings "Happy Thursday" and "Merry Wednesday".  For some time now these words have lost their religious connotations for us, except for a very few pagans perhaps.   Wednesday of course was named for the Norse god Odin or the Saxon Wodan, the All-Father.  Thursday was named for one of his sons, the god of thunder Thor:  Wodan's-day and Thor's-day respectively.  We may greet one another quite cheerfully with a "happy Thursday" and think nothing of it.  There are many cultural/religious artifacts that we use in this way.  So the term "Christmas" has slipped toward this usage, demonstrated by the insistence of Christians that we keep the "Christ" in Christmas, as a kind of resistance to the transition that is already taking place. 

The insistence in so many schools that we refrain from saying "Merry Christmas" or have Christmas concerts is a sign therefore of a number of things.  First, interestingly it is a sign that schools are colluding with Christians to keep Christmas a religious holiday (and thus not a celebration appropriate for all their students), this despite the availability of a number of Christmas symbols that are capable of carrying both religious and secular meaning almost entirely in either direction.  Think of Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, gift-giving... all of these can be thought of in terms completely unrelated to the Advent of Christ, and in fact are thought of this way by many many people.  Following this point, schools themselves therefore restrict our freedom to define Christmas in whatever way we choose, already naming for us the meaning of Christmas (i.e. it has religious meaning).  This is similar to arguing that Santa Claus can only be white or Canadian etc., failing to take into account the symbolic givenness of the season and the signs of its presence.  Christmas, unchained from a specific cultural interpretation, becomes not devoid of meaning, but free in its openness to us.  Instead of shying away from its celebration in schools, now may be the time to ask each beautiful little child what it means to them and their families.  It is precisely in that chorus of small voices that we might hear the melody and meaning of Christmas emerge. 

The Prophet Dead, He the Wretch

 Rest in peace Harold Camping.  You deluded old man.  You instigator of broken lives and hope.  Your guilty conscience will bother you no more...

Blog post from the past

The following is taken from a blog draft written December 16, 2006, separated from my wife, on the verge of divorce, after returning home to spend Christmas with strangers.

How is it that a man can sit in a room surrounded by people and still feel alone?  Some men prefer it this way.  They are at ease until someone should happen to say something to them, at which point, the man feels suddenly shaken, even violated in some way.  The offence is worse if the person should speak directly to him.  It is not so bad if the other should sit down beside him and, gazing out into the crowd without looking at the man, say something requiring no more than a grunt or a “hmm”.  At this point the two can remain silent and feel no awkwardness.  It is only when one becomes aware of the other’s presence that discomfort should follow.  When one has the expectation that two people sitting next to one another should speak to each other then any silence is hardly tolerated.  One can often observe one of these people in action, trying to stimulate conversation, saying the most ridiculous things to prompt the other to speak.  “This is certainly a nice evening isn’t it?”  Or even more ridiculous: “I hear it’s supposed to get colder.”  The silent man, at this point, may do one of three things.  1) He will answer with a nod of the head or raise his eyebrows but for the rest of the evening bear a grudge against the one who violated his peace with such foolish statements; 2) He will simply move to another location where he can dip some shrimp in seafood sauce, or quietly stack a piece of cheese, some assorted meat, on top of a cheese or perhaps herb flavoured cracker; or 3) He will lash out at the offender with a verbal assault.  He may do all three.  Slowly he will nod his head, his neck and face beginning to flush with fury, his eyebrows will rise and his eyes bulge until suddenly he bursts out with “For God’s sake is that the most intelligent thing you can say?!”  Or perhaps, “Who really cares about the weather, it will be what it will be, and the evening is like any other!”  Afterwards he’ll make his way to the table with assorted cold cuts, cheese and crackers, and if he’s lucky the shrimp, where he’ll prepare a tasty tidbit which will distract him from the embarrassment of his outburst.  It is embarrassing in the end, though also gratifying.  It is embarrassing because he was forced to break his own silence, to violate his own spherical vacuum of silence surrounding his body.  He’ll realize he had a choice, that he could have remained silent, adhered to point 1) or simply moved straight to point 2) without calling any attention to himself.  But it was also gratifying, he’ll decide, as he eats his cracker and cheese.  He may even smile to himself.  The look on the other person’s face was priceless. 

The Fire i' the Blood

Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
Too much the reign: the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious,
Or else, good night your vow!

Prospero to the two lovers, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

But language-
In thunder speaks the
God.
Often I have it, language
anger, she said, was enough and approved by Apollo-
If you have love enough, then, go on, rage out of love.
Often I tried to sing, but they did not hear you.  For
that was holy Nature's will.  For her you sang in your youth.
Not singing
You spoke to the deity,
but what all of you have forgotten is that always
the first-born belong not to mortals but to the gods.
More common, more everyday
the fruit must become, only then
will mortals possess it.

Hölderlin, Fragments.

This place I know.  My second gif.. hmm you had to be there :)