My brothers and I used to joke that if our family ever recorded a Christmas album, we'd use the line sometimes uttered by our father: "Merry Christmas... and Shut Up, Goddammit!"
Please: if you're one who is easily offended understand that my dad meant no disrespect to God. But four children, three of them boys who could be very loud and the lone girl trying to get a word in edgewise and having to raise my volume in order to be heard... well, even the most pious among you might snap under the circumstances!
The war on editorial pages over the phrase "Merry Christmas" has been kicking up again this season. This morning, a friend on Facebook posted one from the Times-Herald newspaper in California with the headline: Did atheists survive another Christmas nightmare? After reading through the author's arguments, I think our family holiday album would be a good gift for this man, and many others who feel the need to use "Merry Christmas" as the launching pad for missiles aimed at those who actively proclaim themselves to be atheists. I do not think that is in keeping with the spirit of the season that we are in.
I know many who are atheists, or non-Christians of another stripe, who participate in the secular celebration of Christmas. And while giving and receiving expensive gifts and eating to excess is not supposed to be the focus of the celebration for Christians, face it: we do it, too. We are a part of our culture, and we enjoy the secular fun of Christmastime. We put on Santa hats and stuff stockings. We eat Yule log cakes, and adorn and adore our Christmas trees which make our homes smell nice and woodsy. We're all a little pagan at Christmas.
But for those of us paying attention to our Christian celebration of the holiday, we recognize the gift that is given to us is Love. As the lyrics to the hymn say, "Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine." "The Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing", as we sing, "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord". This is the special gift given to those who believe, offered freely and without reservation. Those who accept that gift, receive it. Those who don't want the gift are not forced to take it. It will remain for them whenever, if ever, they choose to take it. Ah, but this is Christmas... and the gift-receiving is to be reciprocated with the gift-giving. So what is the gift we are to give?
Our selves. Without excuses, caveats, and black-out dates in the same way that Love is loving us in our perfect imperfection. This is the best gift we can give to the one who promises eternal life.
Does that mean that people who don't participate in this gift exchange are without presents during this season? No. And it isn't, nor should it be, our purpose to flaunt this gift and hold it over their heads and taunt them in the senseless way the cited opinion piece does. Wrongly setting up Darwin and evolution as some kind of God-denying fiendish scheme is hardly a Christmas-themed message. The first creation story in Genesis reads like a description of the evolutionary process. New scientific discoveries, including the recent find in Israel of a humanoid species that may pre-date the first known homo sapiens, are signs that we are constantly evolving in our thinking and reasoning and searching. Those, too, are gifts of God. Science and faith are partners in our quest to understand our world, not enemies at war with one another. So let's stop fighting over this.
Wouldn't that make this a merrier Christmas?
1 comment:
We have so much to learn and understand. I don't think i'll ever make it. I like the quiet stuff I think.
Peggins
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