Merry Christmas

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year, just as I have done for years. This year, unlike those in the past, finds my mind filled with questions and my heart filled with uncertainty.

The arguments against Christmas are fairly common, and you've probably heard them before; the discussion of Christ's birth not occurring in December and the celebration being held in the winter to coincide with a pagan celebration as not to get early Christians into hot water; the argument against the crass commercialism of the holiday, the drive to spend more, the hectic pace of the holiday and the entire month that precedes it.

I've been brought to question the entire holiday in a crisis of faith; I discovered this year the parallels between the life of Jesus Christ and the Egyptian god Osiris. Osiris, otherwise known as "The Good Shepherd" was a savior god who died and was resurrected, was born of a virgin, was baptized by a man who was later beheaded, and was betrayed by a close confidant. When I was young, I was always sceptical about religion and later came to trust in Jesus Christ, and now I'm growing sceptical again. If Christ is nothing more than a construct, cobbled together using elements of Egyptian mythology, then my religion is based on a lie and my faith is unfounded. If Christ is really the Messiah and his tale has been embellished by men, then I question their purposes for the deception and don't know what exactly to believe. Christmas, then, falls under the microscope and becomes suspect either way.

I would happily follow a false religion, or a true religion that was "beefed up" with pagan lore, so long as that religion helped me live a just life, be kind to my fellow man and do no harm. In that case, I would welcome the deception. The one factor that keeps me hanging on is that the divinity of Jesus Christ is so widespread and has been so strong throughout history that I find it hard to believe that so many were successfully misled, but the parallels to the Osiris myth (that predates Christ) are hard to ignore. It is difficult, to say the least, to swallow the idea that it is simply a coincidence.

I dealt with this crisis of confidence for about six months, and then December 7th came and it was time to put up the tree. So, then, I decorated my house this year and put up our Christmas tree, largely for the enjoyment of our five-year-old, Harmony. I explained that the giving of gifts to children on Christmas was a tradition to remind us of the gifts that the Magi brought baby Jesus, but she didn't entirely understand it; she just knows that Santa Claus has eight reindeer, nine if you count Rudolph, and that the front porch was pretty with the multi-colored lights, but that we needed some reindeer or a snowman or Santa Claus (maybe next year...I cut down two trees in order to decorate the porch this year).

A screening of A Christmas Carol starring Patrick Stewart the other night also brought pause; the tale by Victorian author Charles Dickens addressed the ills of his time. Dickens was commenting on the poverty caused by the industrial age and the subsequent harsh treatment of the poor in England. Using the formula of the day, Dickens identified a social problem (the mistreatment of the poor by the wealthy and powerful), symbolized that problem with one character (Ebeneezer Scrooge), caused that character to go through trials (the visitation by the three ghosts representing memory, empathy and fear of death), and finally to undergo a conversion (purchasing a Christmas goose for the Cratchit family, raising Bob's wages and becoming a "second father" to Tiny Tim.

This brought pause because it is the first time I have ever seen a production of A Christmas Carol and fully understood the message; this is not the author's depiction of the conversion of one man, but an attempt to cause society, his society, to look upon itself and correct what he perceived to be their grave mistakes. That is what I wish to do. There are too many in this country that feel that we all must "go it alone," that government, which represents the common will and common desires, is intrusive and oppressive rather than supportive of our collective well-being. We spend on guns without thinking but weigh the price of butter, we trumpet personal responsibility but whimper in defense of the weakest among us. We wish each other Merry Christmas without much thought as to how likely that is to the recipient of our well-wishes and in the absence of that likelihood what we could do to insure it or provide it.

We need to change that, and fast. We need to be lovers of men and not profit, fearful of ignorance and want, celebrants of our families and our communities and our children. We need true joy, whether it come from the deep abiding faith in a messiah, born in a manger two thousand years ago, or in the smile on the face of a child who looks up to us and trusts us to maintain the spirit of generosity and protection, or to allow ourselves to soak in the presence of our fellow man, tipping his hat and wishing "Merry Christmas," and knowing that Peace on Earth is something that resides in all of our hearts.