A Christmas epiphany

IN THE NEWS
When Christmas Day finally arrives, it always seems like a bit of an anti-climax. After forty-three Christmases, I think I've finally figured out why.

Christmas, like other holidays marking the end of the calendar year, is an introspective holiday. All bright trappings, clamorous music, and back-slapping good-fellowship aside, Christmas grabs you with two hands and forces you to look at your life. The first hand is, as I said, the end of one calendar year, soon yielding to a new year ahead. You're faced with the record of 365 days of choices behind you, and another 365 ahead. How wise or foolish these choices have been is, of course, the question that haunts the holiday, in much the shape and style of Scrooge's three famous spectres.

The other hand of Christmas is the moral symbolism of the holiday. Turn one way, and you're face to face with Santa Claus, the secular symbol of ultimate charity--something which all of us fall short of achieving. Turn the other way, and you're facing Jesus, who may or may not be the son of God for you, but who nonetheless graced this world with a powerful moral message.

Whether or not you think the Pope speaks for God, the Holy Spirit passes through the congregation at Sunday services, or it's possible to be sufficiently moved by a hymn to babble in the tongues of angels, Jesus can prod you, as he is reported to have done to the people around him, with sharp questions. Who is the better person, the outwardly pious individual, or the maligned Samaritan who helps a person bleeding to death? Is the compulsion to do the right thing--what Jesus probably meant by the word faith--something limited to his apostles, or a trait that even a pagan, Roman soldier could have? And who can say for certain whether the father of the prodigal son made exactly the right choices dealing with both his sons?

Christmas, therefore, is a holiday with power beyond both the strictly secular and the strictly religious. When Christmas Day arrives, the frenzy of December begins to wind down, all the packages have been opened and all the relatives and friends called, I'm left, as you may be, with a question: Is that all there is?

Please don't mistake what that question really purports to ask. It's not, Are these all the presents I got? Are these all the people who can wish me good cheer on this holiday? The question really is, Is this all that I can be?

It's OK to be bothered by this question. Both Jesus and Santa would want you to ponder it, at least for one day out of the year. (Probably every moral thinker from Aristotle to the Buddha to John Rawls would approve as well.) It doesn't have to overshadow whatever good you have done in the world, and you don't have to feel guilty if, indeed, you're grateful for the good things you have. The question really is, what should you do next?

Living through a troubled age grants you an unfortunate bounty of choices. You can give to organizations involved in good works, such as sponsoring a child in Central Asia, providing medical care to families in Africa, or demanding that the Chinese government release its political prisoners. If you have the time, you can volunteer your labor to build homes for the poor in Latin America, help Sri Lankans recover from both a brutal civil war and a devastating tsunami, or bring a steady supply of food to people to people who were destitute before Hurricane Katrina, and homeless afterwards.

Charitable works aren't enough, however. You need to be charitable in your heart. Last night, Alan Jones, the dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, said in a moving sermon that Christmas is like being handed a infant. Suddenly, you're responsible for a small life that, mere mortal or Godhead incarnate, nonetheless represents the future of mankind. It's not what you expected, nor will you know what happens next. The only thing of which you can be confident is your own desire to do the right thing.

Writing this blog is a duty for me. Not a chore, but something I do because I feel I have to. I feel bad when I don't post, even though I have no idea what good my work on this blog does. The possibility of doing good, however, is all that I can be confident in having. I feel bad on days when I don't post, and I feel uplifted when I have the time and energy to add what I hope is a little enlightenment about a frightening and confusing subject. (Maybe if these posts weren't long-winded, I could write more of them.) I also hope to make it easier for people who strongly disagree, but nonetheless have the same compulsion to do good, to identify common signposts on the road ahead.

All of us have the same chances every day, in conversations we may avoid having with one another, for fear of offending or enraging. I strongly believe that it's better we do converse. We may be delighted or disappointed at the results, but the important thing is to try. The life of a child in Nyala, a woman in Kandahar, or a soldier in Baghdad may depend on the results of that conversation.

So, from the bottom of my un-churched, heathen heart, happy holidays to you. Let us embrace the next year of challenges together.

Comments

[Matthew Shugart]

Spectaculuar post, Tom. I really like the "introspective" side of both the post and the holiday season.

And I really related to your remarks about blogging. If you have not figured it out by now, let me say that your blog is a big part of the inspiration for my blog. I have a long way to go...

[Steven Taylor]

A nice post and I hope that you and yours had a very Merry Christmas.

Thanks for the note that you left over at my site earlier and I hope that you, too, keep up the good work (not to add to your guilt if you don't blog as much as you would like!)

Cheers and Happy Holidays.