Tag Archives: Christmas

On the birth of Jesus

xmastree-1In a High School Theology Class, at Fordham Prep, a Jesuit explained to several of us Science and Greek Honor Majors that the word translated in the bible as “virgin” may more properly be translated as “maiden” – meaning only unmarried.  To this day, I find that moment of instruction reassuring.

It allowed us young men to discount the significance that so many believers ascribed to the conception of Jesus in terms defying how every other natural person is born.

Some told us that it was a mystery, the “virgin birth,” that must be taken on faith, but our Jesuit teacher showed us how what is natural was not necessarily contradicted in scripture.

The world is a terrible place if one takes everything literally, does not question the facts, and can’t understand the role of metaphor and symbolism.  I’m grateful for my early faith – or indoctrination –and an appreciation that symbols and metaphors are means that are transparent to transcendence.

When considering the liturgy, we know that some aspects of “the faith” and its liturgical events were taken over wholesale from “pagan” rituals.  Pagan was a term of slander for religions other than what was Christian.

That adoption of the rites of other religions appealed to my political understanding, but it also depreciated what many insisted to be true, that the Christian was the one true faith, although it’s challenging to know which sect of Christianity we’re talking about – the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Baptist, Lutheran, Fundamentalists, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, Latter Day Saints, Eastern Orthodox, or Gnosticism.  Continue reading

A Magical Time!

German and British Troops together in “No Man’s Land”

German and British Troops together in “No Man’s Land”

The seasonal commercial onslaught notwithstanding, this is a magical time of the year, full of family, warmth, intimacy, compassion, togetherness, efforts to find one another, and abundant good will.

It has always been so, or so it seems, as the light of the sun is reborn, the rays shining longer day by day, a time when we renew ourselves from each other, resolving that for the next year, in the New Year, we will do things differently, reform ourselves but also perfect how we can deal better with each other.

While many of us watch film classics of the season about giving and risking for others, about the magic and miracle that is this holiday season, we don’t always appreciate the lesson.

About 100 years ago, somewhere in Flanders, in the Northern region of Belgium, there was singing in watery and flooded muddy pastures and trenches.

Some say guttural voices were first heard in German, singing, “O Tannenbaum,” and then other voices were heard in the King’s English, singing “The First Noel,” but the voices were conjoined when, in Latin, known to Germans and British alike, they could all sing together the familiar words, “Adeste Fidelis, laeti triumphantes.”

World War I had been underway for four months and it had wrongly been anticipated at the outset of the war that it would all be over in time for Christmas.  But it wasn’t.

Pope Benedict XV had suggested a truce for Christmas in early December, and the Germans had agreed but the British, French and Russians refused.

British and German troops were entrenched in parallel lines opposite each other, guns at the ready, under miserable conditions, with a patch of “No man’s land,” separating them north and south, each nation-state’s troops “carefully taught” as to the fierce enemy that they were sworn to shoot and kill.

On Christmas Eve, the Germans placed Christmas trees with lit candles along the front.

It is most often said that a German, who spoke English, was the first to say, after some banter, “Tommy, you come over and see us.”  But the British said, according to one report, “Fritz, you come here.”

Soon they were standing together, in the middle ground, not on either side, amidst the wiry entanglements that separated them, in “No Man’s Land,” talking like they’d known each other for years, lighting each other’s cigarettes, trading pictures and buttons, comparing places they’d been in each other’s country.  They even engaged in soccer games on Christmas Day in the “No Man’s Land” that had been their killing field.  No commanding officer approved this Christmas truce.  Indeed, they opposed it.  But it went on for days and 100,000 “fighting” men from the British and German front participated.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last.  The war resumed.

In 1930 in the British Parliament, a British participant from 1914, Murdoch M. Wood, said, “The fact is that we did it, and I then came to the conclusion that I have held very firmly ever since, that if we had been left to ourselves there would never have been another shot fired.”

We are in that special season now, and we should take the sentiments of compassion and charity that we now celebrate into the rest of the year and that, rather than a retreat or truce from the hard life that can so suffocate what’s best about us, extend this season into the rest of the year, into everything else that we do, and resolve that this New Year it won’t be just losing a few pounds but shedding distrust for the possibility that we can do better in so many ways, as Murdoch Wood said, if left to ourselves, if we foster what’s best about ourselves, how we are in the best time of the year, in this season when the light and illumination grow day by day.

A Magical Time!

German and British Troops together in No Man’s Land

German and British Troops together in No Man’s Land

The seasonal commercial onslaught notwithstanding, this is a magical time of the year, full of family, warmth, intimacy, compassion, togetherness, efforts to find one another, and abundant good will.

It has always been so, or so it seems, as the light of the sun is reborn, the rays shining longer day by day, a time when we renew ourselves from each other, resolving that for the next year, in the New Year, we will do things differently, reform ourselves but also perfect how we can deal better with each other.

While many of us watch film classics of the season about giving and risking for others, about the magic and miracle that is this holiday season, we don’t always appreciate the lesson.

99 years ago, somewhere in Flanders, in the Northern region of Belgium, there was singing in watery and flooded muddy pastures and trenches.

Some say guttural voices were first heard in German, singing, “O Tannenbaum,” and then other voices were heard in the King’s English, singing “The First Noel,” but the voices were conjoined when, in Latin, known to Germans and British alike, they could all sing together the familiar words, “Adeste Fidelis, laeti triumphantes.”

World War I had been underway for four months and it had wrongly been anticipated at the outset of the war, that it would all be over in time for Christmas.  But it wasn’t.

Continue reading

Christmas Eve thuggery

Candlelight vigil held August 10 at Raj Khalsa Gurdwara after the Oak Creek Wisconsin Sikh community was attacked by a gunman, killing six.

He was wearing camo pants and combat boots, a vest and camo cap with a big American flag patch. With narrowed eyes, he was watching the Leesburg Target exit, a well-worn Glock strapped to his hip. I always felt safe at that Leesburg shopping center, but not this time. It was the way he moved. Everyone else was flowing out through those exit doors. I thought he’d be right behind me, that he’d walk outside. He didn’t. He was casing the joint, looking for trouble.

Is this the future? Are we going to have vigilante thugs policing our public spaces, ever ready to “stand their ground?” I hope not. As I passed him, I wanted to say: “Hey dude, no offense, but you don’t make me feel very safe.” I stopped myself. It was the look on his face. Grim, he looked right past me: A white guy with a picture frame; not a threat. He was looking for something else. His expression reminded me of people I see in the SPLC Intelligence Report.

As people celebrate Christmas, remember that the birth of the baby Jesus lead to the “slaughter of the innocents.” We don’t need more centurions, we need more saviors. If I have one Christmas prayer, it’s that we, as a nation, understand the difference between the two.

I don’t say this naively, as a so-called “liberal” fantasy, but as a statement of faith. “People are basically good. Love conquers all.” I understand that we live in a real world. There is a real God out there, and he isn’t a one-sided God of miracles and bliss. He’s also a God of suffering and blood. But let’s leave the suffering to Him. We don’t have to unleash our fear on our brothers and sisters. We mustn’t condone thuggery.

Let the Light shine.

Merry Christmas!