Christmas is a week away.
Given the way I feel about the state of our nation, the only way to enjoy Christmas this year is to live into any and all of the myth making that surrounds it and makes it a magical season.
Christmas was born in a manger story the church told to give Christians something to celebrate at a time when pagan festivals celebrated the winter solstice.
It was all fantasy at the time since the birth of Jesus was never thought to be in December, but, as happens, things have a way of taking on a life of their own.
Christmas today is the rest of the story, so to speak, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction.
Harder still is trying to keep the hardness of life from pushing its way into the season. It has always been that way.
In fact, I think Christmas this year is not unlike the realities facing Christians of past centuries when they celebrated it.
Once Christendom had emerged as the Roman Empire declined, religious and secular authorities rose to power and were in constant conflict to control lands and kingdoms, sharing in common the fact they served their own interests at the expense of the people they ruled.
Sound familiar, what with the decline of America, the rise of Trumpism, the bankruptcy of evangelical Christianity and its Republican Party counter-part?
In this caldron of corruption and unrest Christmas 2017 is about to be celebrated, and it took all I had in me to resist writing about how that caldron is being stirred.
But I knew that being able to observe it at all meant I could not give in to that urge.
Embracing the spirit of Christmas requires you to listen to the story of Joseph and Mary, Shepherds in the field, a baby in a manger among cattle in a barn, and astrologers traveling from the East (wherever that was) to see “what had come to pass” and forget about the real world for a moment.
The tax bill, exacerbated economic inequity, the Russia investigation, the threat of nuclear war with N. Korea, the deepening divisions in the country, and the daily tweets arising from a President stuck in permanent adolescence don’t make make-believing easy.
But make believe we must just to keep our wits about us.
So during this week before Christmas I am determined to listen to bad Christmas music, watch hokey Hallmark Christmas movies, do the necessary last minute shopping I hate to do that is required to avoid being labeled ‘humbug,” and enjoy eggnog I get only once a year.
The urgency of the problems we are facing individually and as a nation, the weight of the issues we face, will not disappear just because it’s Christmas for Christians.
Indeed, because the major players in the American tragedy we are living will be the same, the New Year will surely yield as much angst as this passing year has.
But focusing on this special season, even for non-Christians, can and does hold all of it at bay, if only for a while.
So for now it seems right and good just to send to all of you and to the world wishes for a Merry Christmas, a happy Chanukuk, and holidays filled with wonder and joy.
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