As we approach the final shopping weekend before Christmas,
I thought I would jot a few lines about the holiday.
First of all, it is thought of as being a Christian Holy
Day, but it really isn’t. It is thought to be a celebration of the birth of
Jesus, but it’s not. The winter holidays are pagan. Church Father’s (somewhere
in the early 4th Century CE) thought it would be a good thing for Early
Church PR to have some sort of Feast Day to balance out the Church year with
Easter, and what better way to be welcoming to pagans (you plan to convert)
than to syncretize a new holiday onto their own winter festivals?! So, if you
wondered about the pine and fir trees, the yule log, and all that… it has
nothing to do with Jerusalem, Nazareth or Egypt… it has to do with Saturnalia,
Festivus, Yule and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. Because of the magic of
Wikipedia, you can look up all these festivals and find out what they are
about, but basically it is about the season of winter and the winter solstice. It
is a true fact that New Zealand holds its Yule festival in July… (Think about
it.)
So, to all those cry that the spirit of the season has been usurped, and that we must put "Christ back into Christmas," I have to reply, we can't--Christ was never in it!
The traditional giving of gifts is always misconstrued to be
the “Gifts from the Magi”, gold, frankincense and myrrh. But, folks, the truth
of the matter is that the gift giving tradition comes directly from the Roman holiday
of Saturnalia. It was all about conspicuous consumption, drunken debauchery and
eating to excess. Even Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) had to retreat to a suite of
rooms in his manor, in order that the noise from the festivities might not interrupt
his studies. Toys were given to children, and gag gifts exchanged between
adults. [You know those ugly Christmas sweaters we all love to hate? Well, the
togas at that time had to be either really tacky or were doffed completely,
during these Empire mandated celebrations.] The gifts, if you want to know, are
about the agricultural god Saturn, who was the embodiment of prosperity. You
exchange signs of prosperity with others so that you will be blessed with
prosperity—that’s the general idea. There were sacrifices, also… I won’t get
into gory details; this is a family blog. All you need to know is that Alexander the Great found a way to eliminate that element from the holiday picture.
We are, therefore, acting in a truly Roman Empire sort of
way when we deal with Christmas, which makes the holiday not very Christian, at
all (because it isn’t). Add to that the fact that we have all been trained to
be good little consumers, and you have a complete mash-up of priorities: giving
to the poor means getting for ourselves. We must decorate and cook and wrap and
give and get and buy and buy and buy and and and and… and by and by get stuck in traffic jams, everywhere, with
grumpy people who fume and yell and text and commit acts of road rage against
fellow drivers. How celebratory is that?
Sigh.
In the face of all this craziness, I and my colleagues have
been commuting (though certainly not rushing at great speed) on these holiday-frenzied
roads and public transit systems in order to offer the simplest, but perhaps
the most profoundly intimate gift that can be given or received: sound. Into
the sanctuary of churches, concert and social halls, living rooms and other
spaces, set aside from the noise and the rushing and the personalities, musicians
gather with scores, voices and instruments to soothe the savage breast (of
strangers or family and friends) with healing vibrations. In the past few
weeks, there have been many concerts, small and large; there are more to come.
Give the gift of music to someone you know, with concert tickets or CDs
purchased from local groups. There is a lot of great music happening where you are--don't miss it!
Is your ChristeSaturnalimas seeming shallow, hollow, empty
of feeling or too full of hassle? Get away from all of that. Hie thee to a
concert, now! Settle into a seat.
Close your eyes. Let the music help release your spirit, to make it soar. In
appropriate concert situations, public dance might figure in. Join in and let
your body go; that is singing, too. Listen to beautiful music via electronic media, or go to the shore to hear the waves and the birds. Trust me, you will feel much better for it.
And have yourself as much of a merry something-or-other and as happy a New Year as you can stand.
