| Sunny Side Up Dec. 17, 2003 �2003, Kathleen Gibson The Great Holiday Divorce A child's Christmas at the pageant. What Dylan Thomas could have done with that! The real donkey that had to be coaxed down the aisle with an apple. Wise men entering stage left on mopeds. The miniature inkeeper who yelled at Mary and Joseph to "Come back, you can have my room!" The one-month old baby Jesus who had to be taken out of the manger for nursing halfway through the pageant. Few public school pageants include the Baby Jesus these days. It isn't politically correct. We live in a society of many faiths, and Christianity is one. Not everyone worships at a manger, they say, and we can't insist they do. True--others have come to the Christian celebration and made it their own. They're doing, in fact, what Christians did to the pagans centuries ago. They appropriated the very date of the celebration of the ancient sun-gods, Attis and Mithris, and sought to 'Christianize' society by insisting they worship at a manger. The resulting 'marriage' had a long honeymoon. Both parties cheerfully developed their own traditions. But the mangling mingle has created for many on both sides a distressing dichotomy. Internally disquieting. Externally puzzling. Sleighs rest beside manger scenes on front lawns. Whispers in Santa's ear mingle with petitions directed to God's ear. Matters of the heart have been usurped by habits of the pocketbook. Santa's knee stands in for the kneeling knee. In both Christian homes and non, the wish list is chanted like a rosary. The getting has usurped the giving. It's not the best solution, but could it be time for a great societal holiday divorce? Part of the separation agreement could be that the majority of society--those celebrating the fun, but not the faith--may call this glittering season whatever they jolly well please. Santamas would do. Or Winter Festival. They can keep it, and the date, and the man in red, and all the material magic accumulated in the joint cohabitation of the faithful and faithless. But we Christians would keep the name Christmas. And the carols that sing the story of the Nativity. The ones currently spinning in sickly sweet harmonies over swarming holiday shoppers who care nothing for their deeper message. And the practice of the giving of ourselves, the mark of our founder Jesus Christ. Then we'd quietly take our faith and our manger and walk away to another date on the calendar. A blank white space where we could practice simple Biblical faith. A faith that insists we all become, once again, like the child we together worship. The Savior he became. And there we could place our manger where it will make the most difference of all, and be the most obvious. And where would be that place? In our hearts. Of course, in our hearts. It should never have left there in the first place. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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