December 21, 2004

Where is Christmas?

Path to the sea


I was reading our dear friend, Loren's Blog The Almanac of the Mundane when I came across this post of an article from Viewpoint, regarding the rejection of wholly secularizing this most important RELIGIOUS holiday, by the political correctniks of our society... I particularly loved this quote which he pulled from the post and I will repost as it is the truth of what I am seeing as a merchant this holiday season

Secularism possesses the Midas touch in reverse. It turns what is priceless into dust and sand. It's little wonder that many people are fed up with the whole Christmas experience. Attaching no particular religious meaning to the day, they come to realize that the season is an obscene orgy of gratuitous consumption and synthetic joy. Indeed, it is dawning, perhaps, on some Americans that in the absence of the birth of the Savior there really is nothing to be joyful about.

Woody is the poster child of this whole thought process. Raised in a secular home that did the "tree thing" but he seldom received much more than necessisties from these loving but frugal secularists who I think only did the Christmas thing so "Woody wouldn't feel left out when relating to his little friends". Marie, my late mother in law shared this with me. Today he is not moved by thoughts of holiday cheer, could care less if I decorate the house, buy him a gift or cook a festive meal. He does like the music of the Season and we have many happy memories of concerts and of course church gatherings... Parties are missed as well, as Mr. Social loves a gathering.

I find myself longing for the mythical holiday...Gathering with your family around a table or the tree and having warm fuzzies of feelings about those you love. I think this is a real loss that I don't have anything close to this. My mother would try in her way to recreate some sort of strange big family gathering, inviting people that were not family to be family... I totally supported this...but it was never on Christmas day and even the invitees after a few years would push the dates out into January.. Heavens that's not Christmas but some sort of strange semifamily gathering that gifts were exchanged and as a single buying a gift for 20 people that I hardly knew, it was crazy anyway. I did it sort of to please her. But Woody in the last few years put his foot down on the gifts and the whole strangeness of the thing... The year he had enough was when the gathering was held at my brother and then sister in law who were practicing pagans... The whole druidic wierdness of it was enough to make me throw up... Steve and Cheri gave each other a pair of 200 lb bronze gargoyles for their garden, named Agnes and Benedict... All of their friends came from their "church" dressed in black. I kept waiting for Count Dracula to show up... Strangely enough, Mom felt this was perfectly acceptable, "its their house after all..."

I was in Troyers Amish Heritage restaurant in Butler, Ohio during our sojourn there and they have a lovely craft and gift shop on the second level of the building. They were just putting up the holiday things and one thing that gathered my attention was a plate with a poem on it about this whole thing... I found myself in tears... Saying " I will never know this... I have no children and no family of my own. I am alone in this life without a lot of hope of changing this at this point..." and I was very sad...

As I looked about me, I wondered if it really is a myth. Lets face it. We have all been told that if our holidays don't resemble the Waltons Christmas special then something is very dysfunctional. But I think that it is just the opposite. I think that is the exception rather than the norm in our generation. I agree with the writer that we have come to the place that we don't accept the commercialism (or just bloody cant afford to put on more thing on our maxed out credit card) For those of us that understand what the holiday is truly about, we are sickened by the abuse of it, and the relentless push of a secularization that would bring the natal day of Our Lord back to its Saturnalia roots... ( I also think Jesus was born in September not December...)

For those of us in ministry, the temptation is to put too much on the calendar. I remember the grief of doing a week of helping out with children's plays, choir concerts, and parties. Then a late Christmas Eve Service followed by two or three services Christmas day... Only to not be invited to share the intimacy of a holiday gathering, as I was the only single on a staff of married people with children. I never said no in an endless attempt to be accepted by a church that used me. I sat in front of my own tree and cried many December 25ths, wondering why...

It is my humble opinion that we need to convert this holiday of greed into a time of service and caring. I wish that I could do this here but there doesn't seem to be a venue that I could access with things in my life in somewhat of a turmoil. I will be doing that next year both Woody and I agree on this... We look around us and see that there are needs and nothing is done about them. Let us do them. I applaud those that take the time to work at soup kitchens and fill shoe boxes for Samaritans Purse so kids in poor countries can have a little something...but the secularist alarmists freaked out and put up this site denouncing this effort. The Grinch lives folks...

Yes he lives... Mr. Grinch is symbolic of the Secularism that has permiated this holiest of days. As long as Mammon the God of Money holds sway over this day, hearts will continue to shrink until they are like Mr. Grinch's..." 3 sizes too small." Let us think less of the materialism and the secularism and more about the miracle of Emmanuel... For God is with us..