The Christmas Season
Christmas is one of the only holidays for which we speak of there being an entire season imbued with a particular spirit. If the spirit that breathes life into Christmas is charity, it is a good thing that we lengthen it from a day to a month or more. While it is a controversial assertion, it seems a salutary thing for mankind that Christmas should have jumped from religious celebration to cultural tradition. In these clamorous and callous times, who is not bettered by being made more acutely aware of the dire need of charity?
Not every act of charity must occur as a grand gesture. It is not a virtue reserved only for big moments or for those with deep pockets. We should not allow the commercialization of Christmas to be our only alternative to an exclusively religious interpretation. While its origins within our culture are undoubtedly difficult to disentangle from Christianity, we do not need to profess a faith to be awake to the idea of authentic charity.
That may sound odd, that the Christmas season could be uncoupled from the birth of Christ which it is the celebration of; but our society, combined as it is of peoples of different faiths, religious traditions, and the absence of any particular faith, are not made worse by an inducement to greater self-reflection, consideration, and charity.
John Ruskin, writing in Modern Painters in 1843, contended that charity was almost emblematic of the “right Christian mind,” and that it would,
“…find its own image wherever it exists, it will seek for what it loves, and draw it out of all dens and caves, and it will believe in its being often when it cannot see it, and always turn away its eyes from beholding vanity; and so it will lie lovingly over all the faults and rough places of the human heart, as the snow from heaven does over the hard and black and broken mountain rocks, following their forms truly, and yet catching light for them to make them fair, and that must be a steep and unkindly crag indeed which it cannot cover.”
How do we look upon one another? Not simply those whose faults we must forgive or ignore because we have little choice but to live with them, but can we rise to the demands of charity and find purpose for it in hard and dark places? Can we give it even when it is unmerited? It is almost as Martin Luther King, Jr. had described character in his 1963 book Strength to Love, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.” The book most likely to be read at Christmastime is Charles Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol, which was itself occasioned by Dickens having visited Samuel Starey's Field Lane Ragged School, a school for “slum children.” The places wherein charity is most often occasioned are the places most likely to break our hearts; nevertheless, the season calls for us to cover what is hard, and black, and broken with something fairer from the human heart.
In a season we have time that we might not have in a day. We have time to broaden our minds and attune our hearts; to adjust our moods and find the means, whatever they might be, to ennoble ourselves and our fellows.
While these last days of the fall semester are a harried time, and the shopping and decorating take on a dim spirit of obligation, find the time for mirth and joy, for friends and family, for laughter and nostalgia, for good will and spontaneous acts of kindness to fill your lives and homes. Watch films like Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life or Henry Koster’s The Bishop’s Wife or Peter Godfrey’s Christmas in Connecticut. Listen to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, or the carols sung by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, or revisit Bing Crosby in 1942’s Holiday Inn. Read Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas, Susan Wojciechowski’s The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Robert Barry’s Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, and Astrid Lindgren’s Christmas in Noisy Village to a young child. Light a candle and let it fill your home with the scent of balsam, fir, and spices; celebrate your traditions, make your home “merry and bright,” and let this be the assault on your senses that prepares the way for the charitable sentiments that lighten our hearts and betters us all during this Christmas season.
D. Anderson
Principal
