Signposts

Seth, I agree with most of what you wrote about the hokey/tacky/garish light displays that appear in November and December. I cannot help but feel that these light displays are evidence of a spiritual hollowness in suburban America that is truly frightening. Our culture is so toxic with commericialization that our very modes of expression are co-opted and warped, so that vague conceptions of civic pride are born deformed, i.e., sunbathing penguins and Jingle Bell Rock. In six months, we will see churches with pacifist creeds selling explosives to help us to celebrate nationalism. It is very difficult to retain any hope of being able to raise healthy, Christian children in this culture.

Well, I dunno that everybody belongs in the single pigeonhole you’re trying to jam them into. I’m sure some do, same way I’m sure some genuinely enjoy putting out the lights as an outer expression of inner joy. The single-dimensioned view expressed here does not really move me – bells and whistles from one angle but when you try to turn it around to examine it, it collapses into a thin line – or maybe the width of a piece of plywood.

Clashing like Eskimos and Cubans. I like that.

I really look forward to this time of the year BEING OVER. It is just so ridiculous. There is nothing like the exhale on the day after Christmas.

I’m much more of a fan of new years as I enjoy sizing up the year and making plans/goals for the next.

Merry Christmas Seth!

Seth the Grinch,

You are a depressing soul! Some times try to see the good in things…even if something bad happens or if sacrifices have to be made, it gives one experience and opportunities. You are one of the most depressing people I know! Everything is hokey, everyone is evil, life is lame, people are mean, bla, bla, bla…snap out of it! Awake from your self-loathing slumber…much of the time our lives are what we make out of it and are based on our positive or negative outlook. Although many are in denial and refuse to take any personal responsibility, if they just get over themselves, and not focus on what everyone else has which one may not have, then life is good. Aro, asked a real good question, by the way. Anyway, Seth, here is a extra-special double merry Christmas to you!

Seth,

I sent to you a column by Michael Medved that takes an opposite tack. Remember, Medved is Jewish and sees an ecumenical benefit in our traditional Christmas celebrations.

Now back to your assault on our Christmas traditions. I take your viewpoint as originating in your own personal masochistic version of Christianity. “Suffering” is the wellspring in your faith. Yet, I think that you would have a different angle on the day if you had your little son sitting on your lap with a newly unwrapped toy on Christmas morning. Or maybe reading the birth of Christ in John’s Gospel to the family on Christmas eve. There is an intimacy awakened in these quiet interludes, and a much deeper meaning. You missed it!

The gift-giving, Santa Claus story, trees, lights and displays, all exist side-by-side with special church services, readings from the Gospels, caroling, and nativity scenes. In fact, people that would never be seen in a church all of a sudden appear. It is absolutely amazing that much of the more secular associations with Christmas came from a country that also happens to be the most fervent in its Christianity than almost any other developed country.

Your protest not only stems from your personal circumstances but also from a reflexive dislike for wealth. I hear ringing in my ears the chant “commercialism”, “commercialism”, “commercialism” from an alliance of the secular Bolsheviks of the left and the right’s apocalypse-mongers. They too have a problem with wealth. The U.S. just so happens to have the wealth to be able to purchase displays and support retail suppliers who have the items to allow people to share their joy for others. It’s not just simply “commercialism”. Again, you missed it!

MQTA also missed it. You both, if you achieve a Christmas barren of these traditions, will have a Christmas closer to your likes, but also one that will fade to nothing, like all those empty cathedrals in Europe. Beware of what you ask for, you may get it!

R. Graf

Jeff,

You must have watched the History Channel’s Christmas Unwrapped: the History of Christmas and are now officially the Seth-Blog-Christmas-Historian/Grinch! Thanks, for the History lesson, I think anyone who knows a little history knows Jesus was probably born in April. Jeff, have you or any of your family ever celebrated a birthday on any other day than the one you or someone else was born? I guess what I am saying is, so what and merry Christmas! And thanks for making my point of an apostasy after the death of the Apostles, and how agnostic and pagan beliefs integrated into Catholic/Orthodox Christianity. That’s why many Protestants attempted to reform and bring back the Church to its foundational roots. Anyway, happy pointless, relative holiday time off of work!

Seth,

Jeff is technically correct, particularly in his use of historical exegetics in unwrapping the origins of many of our Christmas traditions. I am, however, plagued by 2 questions: (1) “So What?”; and (2) “Where does that take us?”.

First, “So what?”. OK, traditions had their start at some point. OK, they were an affront to somebody at some time in some place. Yes, they take shape, and are continuing to take shape, in the march of time. Regardless, they are innocuously enjoyable, bring families together (that is part of the tradition), and most importantly bring to the public’s attention in a very forceful way a central tenet of the dominant faith in America. This is in spite of the accretions whose pagan ancestry, by the way, has been stripped from them.

I maintain that traditions add color and social emphasis to what is at root a religious holiday. They are not a product of an overt, singular act of the state, like the “Frost” festival of the Soviet Union. They were shaped and molded in a Christian civilization, gradually over many centuries as Christians lived their lives. So, back to my question: So what if the scant outlines of a tradition began in the mystic past when our ancestors worshipped in a different way.

Second, “Where does this take us?”. Would you prefer a social stigma on Santa Claus and Christmas trees (I hope that you wouldn’t advocate their criminalization)? Are you trying to drum one up? If not, where does that leaves us? If your concern is the bleaching of Christ from Christmas, I heartily agree, and the most serious threat comes from the multiculturalists and the Bolshevik left. Rather than dredge up some trite and ancient complaints, we should confront foursquare the ongoing assault whose main goal is the removal of Christianity from the public schools and from the public square in general. Already a deep faith in Christianity is quickly becoming a disqualifier for public office.

Surely we have bigger fish to fry, as the saying goes. Is it wise to beat up ourselves over Christmas lights, Santa Claus, and the myriad of child-like myth stories that surround Christmas? Different, more up-to-date versions of the barbarians are at the gates.

R. Graf

jeff – I’ve always wondered how you get your o’s to type upside down like that.

Roger – I think you’ve got jeff wrong there. His concern is not “the bleaching of Christ from Christmas”. Rather, if there is anything to be said that might cast derision on, or question the authenticity of the Christian faith, it’ll come out of his mouth at some point or other.

Seth,

The great bulk of comments seem to come from people who are in basic agreement in their core spiritual commitments, with the exception maybe of Jeff — but he too approaches the discussion from a rational framework that arose in a heavily Christianized civilization. Yet we all have our emphasis. Therein lays the discord, but a friendly one at that.

MQTA, being a caring father, sees the innocent enjoyment that his children receive in many of the traditional Christmas-time entertainments. I too have experienced that very same joy. So with the Christmas lights that adorns many homes.

Still, MQTA mischaracterized the rejoinder that has been raised by a couple of us. My response wasn’t so much “ferocious” as spirited and energetic. Simply put, I heartily disagree with you and MQTA. I hope that you do not feel mauled.

Certain incidents are disturbing though; for example, the customer stampede at a Walmart. Events such as these should frighten us. Alas, however, horrible displays of human depravity are not unique to Christmas, nor the result of the gift-giving associated with the holiday. The event may have more to say about those people in that locale than about the rest of us. Be careful about generalizations based on flimsy evidence.

In MQTA’s latest contribution is one final stab at the evils of “commercialism”, “capitalism”, “corporate behavior”, etc., in his further attempt to buck you up. Before I go any further: clarification, clarification, clarification! First, “commercialism”, “capitalism”, and “corporate behavior” are what people do when you leave them alone. The evil that men do is really the evil that resides in the human condition. Evil is not generic to the act of people engaging in trade (i.e. “commercialism”), or people owning property and using it to make a living by offering goods and services to others (i.e. “capitalism”), or managers of privately-owned property making decisions as to its use (i.e. “corporate behavior”). Once again, evil can only exist in the human heart as we perform these functions. MQTA strays into the error of reifying innocuous abstractions and then imparts to them human qualities.

Further, MQTA, in his final paragraph, makes a point whose premise and conclusion is only loosely attached. I was never aware that my “attack” proved the argument that I demolished. The logic escapes me. I would prefer more meat between the initial premise and final conclusion. Oh well, maybe that is for another installment.

Seth, you and MQTA have e meeting of the minds on the issue. I just would hope the minds that met would avoid the thickets of questionable obsessions.

R. Graf

Roger: your stated interest in protecting Christianity is suggestive of an industrialist who pledges to protect the air and water with all of the toxic waste at his disposal.

Anti-Bilbo,

No I did not watch the show on the History channel that you referred to. Not sure if you meant it pejoratively or not-if I had to guess I would guess you did given past behavior- but I take no issue with being the Seth-Blog-Christmas-Historian/Grinch in fact from where I stand your criticism is a positive one.

Have I ever celebrated someone’s birthday on a day other than their actual birthday? No I have not but the concept is not foreign to me. There is quite a difference between a friend or family member and the being considered to be the savior of mankind-or I would expect there to be anyways. The other problem with that is even when people do celebrate someone’s birthday on a day other than their actual birthday they generally do not do this forever as a tradition especially not in such a way that they are actually covering up the original date to the point where many people don’t even know there was a different date to begin with.

I don’t actually find much fault in the wrong date being used and that isn’t even remotely close to the point I was making.

Thanks though, I did have a very happy, pointless, relative holiday time off of work.

Aro,

It’s just an optical illusion.

MQTA: your statged interest in protecting the environment is suggestive of an environmentalist who pledges to protect jobs and economic security with all the toxic logic at his disposal.

R. Graf