(begin) Recently, I find it takes a lot of energy to stay positive; our politics and our civic discourse have become so toxic. I fear we may have bitten so deeply into the forbidden apple we may be past halfway to getting ourselves kicked out of the garden.
Thank goodness, they run Jimmy Stewart’s old classic 'It’s a Wonderful Life' at Christmastime. I referred to it recently in a column while praising Dan Wolf. Stewart plays the reluctant owner of a tiny savings and loan who joins with his sweetheart to finance low-cost homes for former slum-dwellers. They’re there with flowers and a prayer when every new homeowner moves in.
The new neighbors are Black, Italian, Irish — a full spectrum — and they seem to enjoy each other and pitch in together when the time comes. It’s a template of the American Dream. That dream is at risk today, as an ideal and in fact.
Good people, loving people, feel the suffering around them. Even sad people feel the sadness in the air, too. But angry people listen only to themselves. When the forces of disintegration are more competitive than the forces of unity, dark times can come. Love always survives, but sometimes as a refugee. I worry a lot about that. The more aware we are of the suffering of others, the less likely we are to inflict it.
And yet, this is Christmas. Despite all the carols and jingles in the stores, I suggest going to the symphony. Hear a really good choir or even one solo voice and the magic is still there. We’re not just supposed to celebrate Christmas, you know. In old-fashioned terms, we’re supposed to 'keep Christmas' in our hearts. What can that possibly mean?
Hold on, I say. I’m a Hindu! What’s 'keeping Christmas' worth to me? Well, I have always believed in matters of faith that the more stories we hear, the more truth we get. Hindu scripture tells us we should not love the religion; we should love the soul in the religion. In behavioral terms, 'keeping Christmas' means really looking for the souls in the people we meet. It’s trying to remember we’re all souls in body suits — spiritual beings.
Ebenezer Scrooge finally emerges from his lonely mansion encountering everyone he meets as a newly discovered soul. What makes it even more wonderful is that each soul has its own story. It becomes poignant when you’re old to realize how many stories you’ll never get to hear. We can imagine Scrooge realizing that.
It was the custom in Dickensian England to hail everyone at Christmastime as if they were long-lost friends. In keeping Christmas, half the bonhomie might have been a stage act, but then the subtle part kicked in. We don’t just do what we feel. It works in reverse. What we habitually do, we eventually become.
'Keeping Christmas throughout the year' is that spiritual 'becoming' successfully accomplished. It is what Christianity can look like, not when it’s proclaimed but when it’s being lived! How could I not love that?
And so my dear reader, we live in a country that’s tearing itself apart at the seams. We’re taking a perverse pride in our inflexibility, a righteous anger that’s become addictive. That is where we are.
How will we get ourselves back? We can decide — even if it kills us — that we are going to keep Christmas in our hearts. And if we can’t? We’ll set our jaws and pretend to keep it anyway... and become better human beings. Mind you, what I’m offering you isn’t easy. Still, the simplicity of it makes it easier to remember.
You are a soul in a body suit. Sometimes you’re not even sure why you’re here or what you’re supposed to do with the body you’re in. You’ve gotten frustrated and angry with Heaven, yourself, and all those other body suits competing for increasingly scarce resources.
'Bah humbug' you say when the carolers appear. And then it happens. Suddenly it’s not body to body but soul to soul and you break down and fall in love with all of it. This is when the magic happens.
Instinctive kindness is the fruit of gratitude that’s not forgotten. It’s not actually about the creeds, which without love are meaningless. It is love that quickens inert matter into existence. That is the truth worth keeping. (end)
Let's do whatever we can to prevent being kicked out of the garden. As a first step, let's make sure our creed is about love. Come to think of it, our Nicene Creed makes no mention of it. That's the danger of too much reliance on dogma to describe our religious beliefs and our image of God.
God is love, so let's make sure our own personal creeds properly reflect love through what we say and do. Our lives touch so many others. We should not make "awful holes."
Deacon David Pierce
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