Dudley (Cary Grant) the angel in the classic Christmas movie The Bishop's Wife says, "We all come from our own little planets. That's why we're all different. That's what makes life interesting." Which explains a lot. Similarly, I've always thought of the Earth as the penal colony for the rest of the universe. Which explains the non-interesting part of life. It's hard to argue against a naughty and nice world.
To simplify, some take the everyone is "ultimately good" approach, at least deep down inside somewhere, while others take the everyone is "ultimately bad" regardless of any good they may do. The rest are left to some kind of sorting out approach which usually places their kind on top in whatever ways they deem important. It makes it all rather convenient.
I've met several people who say it's our differences that make us who we are. And again, they just happen to be the right kind of difference. Usually all of this is chalked up to human nature, evolutionary development or mismanaged potty training. But it is curious how we skew everything toward whatever we believe and assume that the lack of insight, intelligence, information, or illumination is involved with what others believe.
It's hard to imagine a theologian who, after years and years of study and teaching, asked, "Who is this Jesus?" Yet, he apparently did. He gets credit for uncommon honesty, even if he couldn't come up with a cosmic conclusion while others seem to, or claim to, know for sure. But what if Santa had 12 reindeer? These are the kind of questions that can keep you up at night.
I'll not go into all the struggles of faith that I've had with Santa Claus. But from when someone dressed like him, usually my dad, knocked on the door of our old country church after the Christmas program with a bag of candy for the children, to the number of presents under the family Christmas tree whose tags said, "To Chuckie from Santa" but looked a lot like my mother's writing, to the last time I watched Miracle on 34th Street, the relationship with Santa Claus (If that's his real name.) has been pretty strained. Perhaps it was all those years of trying to get off the naughty list. I'm not sure when I began to compare what Santa could do with what Jesus could. But here again, it was curious.
In a world so bent on determining what is fact and what is fiction, the categories don't seem to have changed. I think believers, agnostics, non-believers, the unaware, seekers and those who don't care one way or the other identify the majority in regard to what is beyond the way we understand ourselves. (Degrees, varieties and combinations of such are a given.) What has changed is the level of rhetoric, defensiveness, accusations, misrepresentations, and vitriol. Is it so important to be that right?
Often Christmas has been the opportunity to cease hostilities, at least for a few days or a few hours. So, even with those who thought their kind of difference was special enough to warrant the loss of life found some reluctance to push it to the limit or maybe they were just tired. I find it curious that there's such a thing as The Christmas Spirit. It's a phenomenon that has a lot of explanations. But after everything, it's still about a child being born. And that's about it, there's not much else to say.
I've met several people who say it's our differences that make us who we are. And again, they just happen to be the right kind of difference. Usually all of this is chalked up to human nature, evolutionary development or mismanaged potty training. But it is curious how we skew everything toward whatever we believe and assume that the lack of insight, intelligence, information, or illumination is involved with what others believe.
It's hard to imagine a theologian who, after years and years of study and teaching, asked, "Who is this Jesus?" Yet, he apparently did. He gets credit for uncommon honesty, even if he couldn't come up with a cosmic conclusion while others seem to, or claim to, know for sure. But what if Santa had 12 reindeer? These are the kind of questions that can keep you up at night.
I'll not go into all the struggles of faith that I've had with Santa Claus. But from when someone dressed like him, usually my dad, knocked on the door of our old country church after the Christmas program with a bag of candy for the children, to the number of presents under the family Christmas tree whose tags said, "To Chuckie from Santa" but looked a lot like my mother's writing, to the last time I watched Miracle on 34th Street, the relationship with Santa Claus (If that's his real name.) has been pretty strained. Perhaps it was all those years of trying to get off the naughty list. I'm not sure when I began to compare what Santa could do with what Jesus could. But here again, it was curious.
In a world so bent on determining what is fact and what is fiction, the categories don't seem to have changed. I think believers, agnostics, non-believers, the unaware, seekers and those who don't care one way or the other identify the majority in regard to what is beyond the way we understand ourselves. (Degrees, varieties and combinations of such are a given.) What has changed is the level of rhetoric, defensiveness, accusations, misrepresentations, and vitriol. Is it so important to be that right?
Often Christmas has been the opportunity to cease hostilities, at least for a few days or a few hours. So, even with those who thought their kind of difference was special enough to warrant the loss of life found some reluctance to push it to the limit or maybe they were just tired. I find it curious that there's such a thing as The Christmas Spirit. It's a phenomenon that has a lot of explanations. But after everything, it's still about a child being born. And that's about it, there's not much else to say.
JOYEUX NOEL
Just caught up with this one. Great stuff.
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