Rants & Rambles
2 - Reflections on the Christmas Myth
I'm not a religious person, but I was raised in the Christian tradition, and I always enjoy the Christmas season. Along with the giving and getting and the general good cheer, I actually enjoy the time of reflection. I think about the myths and rituals and what they have come to mean to me. I always find some hope in this season.
I am less into the getting part of Christmas these days. I enjoy a few well chosen presents (well chosen because I make my desires known to a family that listens well), but I don't need to see a huge pile of packages under the tree. Now that Ross is older, he's fine with that, too, so we're all trying to ignore the constant pressure to give-give-give, which means buy-buy-buy, consume-consume-consume. After all, if we look closely at the text of the Christmas tale, God gave one gift - only one - and he gave it to everyone to share. The three wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but I think those were a later addition to the tale, an attempt to underscore the fact that Jesus was supposed to be the King of the Jews, and so deserved kingly gifts. (We never hear about what the family did with those gifts, do we?)
As well as King of the Jews, Jesus is supposed to be the Prince of Peace. That isn't really apparent in the Christmas myth: God sent Jesus, a piece of himself, because no one was listening closely to him as God anymore. As a human, Jesus/God was able to speak in a new voice, to walk among the living, perform miracles, and get our attention.
We are an obtuse species. To get our attention, God had to go so far as to have his Jesus persona die - the ultimate sacrifice; which is to say, gift. And Mel Gibson has recently made sure we all know just how painful a sacrifice it was.
Be that as it may, the story tells us that people who listened to God/Jesus and followed the new teachings (which were only partially a restatement of the original teachings) would be blessed and ascend to Heaven. Their souls would be saved; hence, Jesus was the Saviour, but not necessarily the Prince of Peace.
Later in the story, we find that among Jesus' teachings was the admonition to love thy brother, along with other calls to everyone to lead a peaceful life. He also implied that God was more fond of the humble, everyday sort of person: the meek who would inherit the Earth. These meek, I'm sure, were the same folks the angel was referring to on Christmas Eve when singing to the shepherds about "peace on Earth to men of good will.
That's a new translation of the text. I grew up with "peace on Earth, good will to men." There's quite a difference in meaning. The old version implies that God was sending peace to all of Earth, and good will to everyone. The new version says that only men of good will are going to get peace. That's something like Santa's practice of bringing presents only to good girls and boys, while the first notion is more akin to the Quaker practice of turning the other cheek.
Read any newspaper, and you don't see a lot of either practice going on. There are various civil wars under way, in addition to our ill-fated incursion into Iraq, ostensibly to stamp out terrorists from Saudi Arabia whose last known residence was Afghanistan. Meanwhile, war profiteers are banking billions of our tax dollars (and billions that don't even exist). Surely the politicians, terrorists, and revolutionaries who start the killing are not "men of good will." Men of ideals, perhaps, but not of good will. As for the profiteers, they are not even men of ideals. They are men of greed, who grow rich on the killing. Neither group are the meek who shall inherit the Earth, At least, we hope they aren't, though it's hard to see God's will being fulfilled here.
In fact, the meek who Jesus spoke of make up the majority of people in the world. They are the average folk who till the fields or collect the firewood or work the eight-to-five. They are not necessarily happy to be average, whether that means dirt poor or comfortably middle class. But they also don't want to abuse other people in order to become powerful and rich. They don't want to fight their way to the top of the management ladder or smear another candidate or start a war. Or be in one. They don't want to persecute other religious or ethnic groups, even though they may completely disagree with and even despise the teachings or lifestyles of those groups. They don't want to set off car bombs. They just want to get on with their lives. To live and let live.
Unfortunately, these average, just-leave-me-alone people are human. They have emotions. They can be riled. And so, through the ages, they have been pushed into violence by the rest of humanity, that minority of zealots, imperialists, and profiteers who crave power, riches, and fame. Who want the world to follow their One Way, and believe they have the right to make it so, even if they have to kill to make it happen.
These people of violence come from all religions, from Crusader to Terrorist. They come from all ethnic groups: the Irish and the Semites, the Persians and the Japanese, the Anglo-Saxons and the Africans. They come from churches cathedrals and mosques, synagogues and Shinto temples. They come from the ranks of the poor and the rich, from mud huts, Saudi palaces, and the White House.
But I still find hope in these reflections, because the hate-mongers and war-mongers are truly the minority. It takes a great deal of effort to incite the rest of us to violence, particularly if we are not attacked in the first place. And even when we start fighting, we are sometimes able to realize our mistake. I think of the vast change in U.S. public opinion that finally ended the Viet Nam conflict. (And, to the amazement of the war-mongers, the rest of Southeast Asia did not become a branch of China or the Soviet Union; the dominoes did not fall.)
I think, too, of Christmas Eve in 1914, in the trenches of World War I. That night, the men of the German and British armies stopped fighting. They sang to each other across No-Man's Land. Then, without orders from the people who started the war, they came out of their trenches to meet on the blasted land, share chocolate, play soccer, and sing some more. For a few hours, they forgot the hateful rationales of the war-mongers and became the average, peaceable people they were.
If you believe the Christmas story, it's the way God/Jesus wanted us to be. I don't believe the story, but I believe the message, and I don't believe it's confined to Christmas or to Christians. It's the majority of us. It's who we are when we ignore the zealots and politicians and put aside our greed. Knowing that gives me hope, every Christmas season and the rest of the year.
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"...the meek who Jesus spoke of make up the majority of people in the world...they just want to get on with their lives. To live and let live..."
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