Christmastide, 2012

Frankly, this year has worn me out.  

It wasn’t so much all the blather, codswallop, and bumpf of mean-spirited political campaigns, as it is the apparent shocking increase in violent episodes across the country.  A pro football player in Kansas City kills his girl friend and then himself; a four year old in Minneapolis finds a handgun in his home and inadvertently slays his two year old sibling; in New York the result of a verbal disagreement is a shove, and a man is hit by a subway train and dies.

As our social fabric seems to unravel, I am reminded of Durkheim's anomie, translated as normlessness. Themes which divide us seem to dominate themes which seek to unite us. To paraphrase Yeats, the center is not holding, and we seem to be increasingly estranged from one another.

The approach of Christmas provides us with an opportunity to consider what changes we might make in our own world-view, the words we use in dealing with others, the actions we take to address a problem, even an attempt to improve an aspect of our own neighborhood or community.

Some decades ago, I was in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, a few days before Christmas.  The then Dean happened to be in the building, and I said I was surprised that the Chapel looked pretty much as it did when I had seen it in a previous autumn.

He asked what American churches were like at Christmas, and I described pine trees, poinsettias, wreaths, and special lights.

He paused and then observed, “At King’s, we believe Christmas is best celebrated in the heart.”

That comment - and my subsequent embarrassment - still resonates in me after all these years.  Of course, he was quite right, and since that moment,  my views about all the decoration we strew about us in “celebration” of the season have changed.  I’m not against it, mind you, I just think of it  as an obstacle keeping us from the heart of the story - that story which should be in our hearts.

Take time this Christmastide to be quiet and to reflect on what really, really matters. Go back and reread the telling of the birth in Bethlehem.  Find a new way to make someone else’s life better - a kind word, a contribution, the gift of time.  

The light show on the house tends to obscure the real meaning of Christmas; maybe it’s enough if  we just try to light up the lives of others.

A Happy Christmas To You and Yours,

Nick

Coda: The horror in Connecticut on Friday makes clear the need for us to focus on gun safety, identification and treatment of those likely to hurt themselves or others, and the lowering of the violent stimuli which are found, well, everywhere these days. If you need to add another resolution to your list for 2013, well, here's your opportunity....ndn