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Sunday, December 18, 2005
Fran’s Sunday Ruminations: On The Eve
Yes, yes, I know there are still seven days before Christmas, but this is the last Rumination before then, so bear with me.
I've had occasion to do a little shopping these past few days -- no, I am not a masochist; I'm just a little behind this year -- and so I've noted the following:
- Store decorations have become so relentlessly secular that a Martian might well imagine that this buying blitz has no relation whatsoever to Christmas.
- The stores seem as crowded as ever, but standards of courtesy and consideration are definitely on the wane. What Lynne Truss has called "the politeness words" -- "excuse me," "sorry," "thank you," "may I," and their kindred -- have been in short supply around the Island. Shoppers seem more determined than ever to assert their own prerogatives against all contrary indications, just as if they were ensconced in their own homes.
- The above does not apply to sales personnel. Wherever I've gone -- more than a few places, I assure you -- clerks and floor assistants have exerted laudable efforts to be friendly, helpful, and polite.
- However, those sales personnel seem to feel a pressure to conform to the new, PC/secular/non-Christmas lexicon. "Happy Holidays" is about all one hears from them, except in the smaller boutiques, whose employees seem to be under less constraint.
- Despite all the above, I observed quite a few shoppers purchasing undisguisedly Christian items, most notably crucifix jewelry and Nativity creches.
- One can raise quite a few eyebrows and blanch an equal number of cheeks by responding to "Happy Holidays" with "Merry Christmas, and may the grace and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of Mankind, be yours throughout the new year."
There's a lot of tension in the air.
I'm not thinking of politics now. My sense of the ordinary people around me, on the average far less politically engaged than I am, is that they're waiting for some cloudily imagined but quite unpleasant shoe to drop. Terrorism? Economic collapse? A visit from the in-laws? It would be impolitic to ask.
Why now? Apart from the in-laws, this is a habitually serene time of year. Revolutions and other sorts of political upheaval begin in warm weather. Economic disorder is unlikely during a season of such relentless consumption. And despite the scare propaganda cheerfully brought you by an Old Media dedicated to keeping you on edge 365 days per year in the interests of circulation and advertising revenue, the avian flu isn't about to harm Americans to any significant degree.
There's a strange thing for you: cold is reputed to be bad for your health, isn't it? But the transmissibility of disease decreases sharply as temperatures sink. This despite the fact that people are generally more inclined to cluster indoors when the snows fly. We do notice our sniffles and coughs more in winter than in summer, but this might be a perceptual effect alone. (Perhaps all the drinking we do in the Yule season keeps the germs down. It could be mere coincidence, but why take a chance? Better safe than sorry, I say; pour me another tot of rum.)
But I find this to be my most relaxed time of year. I didn't always feel that way. The gift-buying custom used to twist me up unspeakably tight. Dealing with crowds of strangers honed my nerves to a razor's edge. Dealing with relatives was still worse.
Something changed all that for me, a few years back. Age? Perspective? The progressive thinning of the herd of relatives? These things that come to all of us might have had something to do with it. But there've been other developments as well, among which the World Wide Web must be counted significant.
The Web has made it possible for me to express myself in ways that, little more than a decade ago, were out of reach of all but a few. It's allowed me to find friends and kindred spirits I'd never otherwise have known. And it's renewed my conviction that the great majority of Americans really are the tolerant, decent, agreeable sorts I'd always believed them to be.
The Church really should nominate a patron saint of the Internet Protocols.
Towering above any gift one man might confer upon another is, of course, the original Gift: the Incarnation of the Son of God in human flesh, of which Christmas is the commemoration. That Christ's sojourn among men culminated in his torture and death on the Cross does not detract from this extraordinary blessing; rather, it gives it the sharpest possible point.
For quite a number of years, I puzzled over the whole thing. Why was it necessary? There are no limitations on God; He could have chosen any number of ways to counterbalance human sinfulness. Indeed, He could have decided simply to wipe the slate clean, consign Mankind to instantaneous oblivion, and start over -- or not. So why subject His Son to the ignominy, agony, and death the histories record?
There's a certain amount of presumption in every human attempt to know the Mind of God. His Consciousness is unlike our own. He sees all ages as one, possibly because all ages really are one to the Being Who created time. That includes all the unrealized possibilities as well: whatever might have been, but was not, because of human choice. All of those might-have-beens are just as substantial, in His Vision, as the steps we "really" took, the joys and sorrows we "really" felt.
For finity to attempt to grasp Infinity is plainly a case of ambition beyond one's means. Yet we must try; it's in our nature.
So why?
Perhaps the answer will be revealed at the General Judgment. But perhaps we needn't wait that long. Hearken to a conjecture from the great Clive Staples Lewis, through the fangs of his most hypnotically compelling character, the demon Screwtape:
He did not create the humans -- He did not become one of them and die among them by torture -- in order to produce candidates for Limbo, "failed" humans. He wanted to make Saints; gods; things like Himself. [from Screwtape Proposes A Toast.]
If Lewis has the right of it, it was not Need that Incarnated Christ among us; it was Desire. God's Desire to raise His creatures to His own estate, along a path never before trodden. A path which no man would ever have thought to take, had He not descended to our plane, walked among us, taught us patiently by word and deed, and suffered the vilest fate ever visited upon any man, as a testament to His love for us.
We often speak of "the gift of life." Yet how little we really know of that gift. How little we really appreciate it!
May God bless and keep you all.
Comments
“Merry Christmas, and (snip) new year.”
Isn’t that about equal in length of time to the average mugging in New York?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/18/2005 at 03:13 PMI generally say “Merry Christmas”, even though for us it’s a secular holiday. But were I to be so greeted, I would have to respond with: “And to you a joyous Yule; and may you find warmth within and without in the returning of the Sun.”
Merry Christmas, Fran.
Posted by Jeff Medcalf on 12/19/2005 at 03:42 AM
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