Christmas

`And how did little Tim behave?´ asked Mrs Cratchit….
`As good as gold,´ said Bob, `and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.´
Charles Dickins, A Christmas Carol

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?
Bob Hope

Christmas Eve is my favourite… I think the anticipation is more fun than anything else. I kind of lost that. The idea that something – food, traditions, an arbitrary date on the calendar – can be special because we decide it should be. We make it special. Not just for ourselves, but for others.
Kiersten White, `My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories´

Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.
Steve Maraboli

As we started a meeting at work this week, instead of the usual checking in with the `highs and lows´ of the week just passed, we were asked to share what we most liked and disliked about Christmas. This novel idea resonated strongly with me, and I eagerly listened as each participant shared some insights and described their experience of this most popular of annual festivities. This brought the team closer together in a very palpable way.

On my turn, my mind was immediately taken back to a scene from early childhood, where I was selected from among my siblings to help Dad with what was one of the many Christmas rituals in our house, this one on Christmas Eve. As we went about preparing for it, he explained its meaning.

The idea was to light a candle in the front window of our house as darkness fell, so that, should the heavily pregnant Mary and her husband Joseph pass by in the night, they would know that a warm welcome awaited them here. If I remember correctly, the privilege of lighting the candle fell to the youngest child capable of lighting the candle, aided lovingly by my father.

This scene emerged in an instant, apparently out of nowhere. Extraordinary that, after so many years, a scene which had been absent for fifty years immediately came to mind with such clarity and impact. The kindness, of both the ritual and the way it was performed, in the loving energy of the child-father intimacy, warmed my heart.

Memory is a strange phenomenon indeed. The candle-lighting scene was simply one of many of the fragments that made up the vibrant, colourful mosaic of the Christmas experience of my childhood. I fondly remember how, after the birth of the youngest of the ten siblings, eleven years my junior, we would all line up in chronological order outside the sitting room door, youngest to the front, and then enter the Christmas scene, as if into another dimension. For more than an hour, gifts were dispensed by my parents, unwrapped to squeals of joy, surprise, laughter, and eagerly shown to others with a loud : `Look what I got!´. Occasionally there were more subdued reactions.

The fire was already burning brightly in the hearth, and, in the heavily curtained bay window, the large, decorated Christmas tree with its baubles, figurines, lights, and shining tinsel provided a further source of warm light for the happy scene. Towards the end of the melee, we found ourselves wading ankle-deep through a kaleidoscopic sea of reams of torn wrapping paper, each child creating their island with the gifts they had gratefully received from various relations, near and far.

The turkey, stuffed, dressed, and trussed the previous evening, had been placed in the medium-to-warm oven at the other end of the sprawling old house, long before some of us had woken up. The fragrance of slow-roasting meat, herbs, and spices had already begun to fill every nook and cranny of our home.

While these memories come flooding back, I realise today how stressful it was for me, despite the happy occasion. Our parents were often fretful and tense, burdened by the weight of responsibility for such a large family, children can be cruel to each other, and there was not much space for relaxation in the bustle of our daily lives.

Childhood Christmas was special, however, and anything that distracted from the stress, the anxiety, and the drudgery of growing up in such a large family in the Ireland of the sixties and seventies, was warmly welcomed. As childhood proceeded, the probability of anti-climax increased; a hole was emerging in my soul that could never be filled, it seemed, not even by the magic of Christmas.

I related these memories to my workmates on the call. `What I abhor about Christmas today…´, I then continued, `is the unbridled global consumerism that has hijacked the spirit of this festive season. On my rare visits to the city, I can feel the pressure rise from Halloween onwards. The media begins to rachet up the density of advertising and even the traffic begins to get more congested and the drivers more stressed.´

Thankfully, it has become easy for me to keep my distance from this mainstream action. I do give gifts to those closest to me. These are usually of more symbolic than material value and are intended to touch the heart, to please aesthetically or to help widen horizons. It’s the thought that counts.

What does Christmas symbolise for me today? As one who has been living in addiction recovery, one day at a time, for almost two decades, `re-birth´ is a subject close to my heart. In a beautiful scene in `Walk the Line´, the 2005 biopic on Johnny Cash, Johnny finally comes to after days of detox sweat, hallucination, and turmoil, to be greeted by his soulmate, June Carter – played by Reese Witherspoon – with the following words, in her soft southern twang: `God’s givin’ you a second chance Johnny´.

Christmas is about rebirth. It is a reminder, that whatever might transpire in the course of our conflicted lives, there is always hope. Despite everything that would lure us to neglect and negate the miracle of life, love always wins through in the end.

In the crib scene, witnessed by angels, celestial and terrestrial, the image of Mother, Father, and Child, tells me that the fusion of the energies of shaping and manifestation (doing my footwork, engaging, and being of service) with those of receiving and birthing (trusting the process, cultivating a sense of wonder, accepting whatever outcomes unfold) will always bring about new life.

It is the ultimate embracing of the `yes´ to life that had become more and more elusive as I became increasingly enmeshed in the downward spiral of the addictive dynamic. This is true whether the addiction is substance related or simply behavioural or mental.

Recovery begins with capitulation, followed by an invitation to embrace the unequivocal `yes´ to life. Through living and cultivating that `yes´, we are reminded that we are all born of and through love, that love is our essence and our true nature. This reminder is the real gift of Christmas.  

In the words of the contemporary mystic and teacher, Richard Rohr: From this more spacious and grounded place, one naturally connects, empathizes, forgives, and loves just about everything. We were made in love, for love, and unto love, and it is out of this love that we act. This deep inner `yes´ that is God in me, is already loving God through me.*

*Adapted from Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014), pp 46-47.