A Christ-Mass Reflection

Do understand. I am totally hip on the multi-cultural stuff. I wont be demanding that sales clerks greet us with "Merry Christmas!" or putting the sign out in the yard: "Jesus is the Reason for the Season!" The reality is that many religions and cultures have significant, spiritual celebrations this time of year. And, I think it is a mistake to assume that every person you meet is Christian or even interested in Christianity.

I try to be a little savvy, by not assuming anything. I enjoy celebrating the birth of Christ, and the preparation that is Advent. But not everyone is going to be living my reality. Some are celebrating Channukah, Diwali, or comming off an intense Ramadan, or awaiting the Buddha's Enlightenment Day. Some may be re-reading the Humanist Manifesto; all igniting the *LIGHT* of understanding and compassion during this dark time of the year. God is SO incomprehensibly encompassing, how can we think there is only one way to understand Him?

But... ironically, the people that I meet- the ones who are most likely to actually say "Merry Christmas" with conviction- these people may be the furthest from my reality.

Because everywhere I go, be it the mom & pop hardware, the botanical gardens, the grocer, the craft store... everywhere I go people are celebrating a kind of Christmas that I just cannot wrap my mind around.

I discovered this when assembling an advent project consisting of little figurines. I gathered many items from around the house, but had wanted a baby Jesus in manger figurine. I own one that is dear to me, made of dense plaster and painted realistically. A diminutive golden sash covers the baby's diapered region, soft pink glows on his bisque cheeks, and mustard-colored straw blossoms around Him like a halo. But because this sentimental manger and child is irreplaceable, I did not want to use it for this project. I thought, "I will pick up an inexpensive 'china' manger. Christmas items are selling all over the place." And in fact they have been for sale since before Halloween in most stores.

So why could I not find a baby Jesus? Because everywhere I go, people are celebrating a Christmas that has nothing to do with the birth of ANY baby, much less the holiday's namesake.

I can find Santas that are conceptually a million miles away from St. Nicholas. Cheesy snowman families light up and tower above us from rooftops. Deer, holiday rabbits, Christmas bears, and even penguins waggle their heads back and forth on the front lawn. At the stores, I can purchase ornaments and tabletop displays of Santa on a Harley, Victorian villages frollicking at the skating pond, a pine tree that talks...and sings, any number of candle holders cast from cartoon-like resin, and a mulitude of other scenes that simply dont make sense.

But try to find a baby Jesus. Entire stores are filled with *Christmas* decorations, and yet I feel foolish asking for the one thing that is not there. I can imagine the sales clerk rolling her eyes and gesturing toward the entire STORE full of Christmas chicanery saying, "Are you kidding? Blue and purple metallic is the in-thing this year. What do you want a moldy old manger for?!"

One store I went to had to have a showroom of 100 by 300 yards. No joke- what is that- thousands of square feet of merchandise, and all of it was Christmas inventory. And the amount of space actually committed to anything even remotely religious was a total of 2 shelves, approximately 18 inches by four feet. On this were the cheapest, gaudiest and most poorly cast manger scenes. Defeated and dissapointed, a perused my three options with draining enthusiasm for my find. Truly, they were such poor quality, and interstingly intensly priced, that I could not justify a purchase.

I know there are continual complaints from the Christian religious community that the Christian commercial community is slaughtering the Holy Day of Christ's Birth. But it never hit me so hard as this year. I dont know if it is my evolving sense of spirituality or just another quirk of the economy. But I am disappointed.

But...perhaps.... to find a tiny babe, a KING in peasant's clothing, in a barn, with parents of working class... perhaps this is hard. It was hard for the people of Jesus' time. It is hard for us now. How do we find this King? We search high and low. We hear mysterious prophecies of Him. We wait. And wait. Sometimes decades like Simeon and Anna. To glimpse Him is a rare reality and perhaps the scarcity of Our Lord in our culture today is really no different than in His own time. This is what FAITH is about. We choose to believe. We choose to persevere and to champion His existence and His will. We are not always given an obvious and clear sign- just as when our culture celebrates His birth lacking His image. But we can still choose to believe.