Celebrate
a Deeper Christmas
“I
truly believe that we can and should deepen our understanding of Christmas, not
to arrive at ‘the true meaning of Christmas,’ which usually means some narrow
idea of religious exclusivism, but to see how this commemoration is universal,
basically human, and exquisitely beautiful.”
Thomas
Moore (The Soul of Christmas, Introduction, p.xii)
My
friends and I talked recently about the Christmas pageants we did at our church
in the 1990’s. We had the great good fortune of having a local artist, Art
Price, (unfortunate name for an artist) design the set, which took up much of
the chancel. It consisted of a cave-like wall, a small, rough wooden trough, surrounded
by straw, with an enormous irregular star on the rock wall high above the scene.
In one pageant, we had two little “angels” process in with the choir and place
two stuffed lambs beside the trough; Mary and Joseph were a couple from the
church (Charlotte and Palmer Bell) who had a baby with Down Syndrome, (Sadler)
and he was the baby Jesus. We had an improvisational musician, Ladonna Smith,
play the music and all the children, young and old had roles. It was kind of a
crowd scene. The point is, we had the liberty to portray both the traditional aspects
of the Christmas story and our own interpretation of its meaning.
Always
there is a mystical aspect to our religious holidays—whether the angels and the
shepherds, the revelation of the Magi, or the resurrection of Jesus at Easter.
These are symbols of transcendence, which we don’t allow much into everyday
life, but we commemorate in our religious observances. We’re a little bit shy
when it comes to recognizing transcendence in ourselves and our world, because
that would be seen as, well…“woo-woo”… so we confine it to religious mysticism.
Thomas Moore writes in the Soul of Christmas: “One essential ingredient in
our humanity is to have an opening to the unknown and the mysterious.” We
allow that opening at Christmas whether we are practicing Christians or not.
One welcome
effect of the pandemic is to turn us inward this year. To remind us of the
traditions—real evergreens, and not plastic trees, are selling like hotcakes—and
the symbols, especially light. I looked out my back windows last night at a
neighborhood in the Deep South, that has mystically transformed into an Alpine
village, with lights strung everywhere, across rooftops and around shrubbery. We
are feeling unusually desperate for that opening to the mysterious and
transcendent, because our pandemic reality is so hard to take.
We are
remembering what the season is about—not a commercial holiday, but a spiritual
one. Not a frantic shopping extravaganza, but a quiet observance of the
tenacity and mystery of life. Christmas is a celebration to welcome the light of
love that flows in, and through, and around us all year long. A celebration of
peace on earth. May it be so.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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