Tweet
I'm no longer Christian, but I was raised a devout Catholic. I grew up with a deep appreciation of the Christmas myth, that a divine creator could care so much about human suffering, imperfection and fervent hope for a better world. The mystery myth of what we called the Incarnation (literally, the "becoming of flesh") countered the notion of an aloof, impersonal and cruel god with a vision of a god who cares personally and deeply about humanity and human dignity, enough to come to transform human nature and offer a way out from a life of futility and tears. The Christian myth at once recognizes the deep imperfection of our societies, our suffering, and yet also affirms our fundamental goodness. God becoming flesh means humanity – all humanity – is worth it.
What all that has to do with the music at WalMart is beyond me.
Here in my town, a popular FM station switched over to all Christmas music, all the time at least a week ago. I usually find the vocal gynmastics and contortions of the "artists" in rotation to be so kitschy as to be unlistenable, but my partner likes the station, so I hear it a bit.
The other day, I heard John Lennon's Christmas song and it put a lump in my throat, given all that's going on.
War? On Christmas?
Let's bring our sons and daughters home, and stop sacrificing them to George Bush's intransigent vanity. Let's do it now.
70 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Pach!
oh happy zed!
Happy Buy Nothing Day!
hmm – parallel play?
oh, heck – I’m going for the record
FITZ!
Kobe (the splendid canine!)
kirk murphy @ 2
I’ll second that!
Morning all.
To Christy and her family!
I was raised a ‘non-devout’ Catholic. It is not the myth that is important. It’s the message that is. And the message has been lost on so many.
I want my people home from Iraq. Now.
Morning Pach, everyone!
Forgive me if this has been noted already, but I found the following a particularly therapeutic read ;->
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..34780.html
six fitzes – is this a tie for the record?
(memo to fitzing pups – for competitive fitzing, felines on the keyboard may delay one’s response time…..)
Raised Catholic, became an atheist by 16, now I’m an atheist Unitarian-Universalist who believes in Santa and magic!
It’s all about learning to live in the gray areas between the contradictions!
Happy Buy Nothing Day!
The “War on Christmas” people are part of the We Poor Christian Victims movement. They have managed to convince many that the most powerful religious group (Christians) in the most powerful country (USA, for a while longer anyway) are martyrs one and all. Poor babies.
The next time someone tries this myth on you, just ask them to name the last time that a priest was thrown off an airplane for praying. Then, if you’re lucky enough to have them knocking on your front door, turn the hose on ‘em and wish them a Merry Krishna.
Another fully lapsed Catholic here. I often wonder how different my values might be if I’d grown up in today’s church, with its obsessions about gays and abortion.
In the 60s and 70s, the focus was on helping the poor and afflicted, ensuring justice and equality. Nuns were suddenly allowed to — gasp! — wear dresses that went down only to the knee. One of our priests played “Cats in the Cradle” to kick off a Father’s Day homily. My mother, who taught a catechism class for what we would now call tweens, used the album “Jesus Christ Superstar” to spur discussion during Lent.
As for Vatican II, it marked the end of Friday night fish sticks on our house. Halleluiah!!
Troops
Home
NOW
John lennon’s song is my absolute favorite christmas song. It blends the cure, with a clear sense of what we do as human beings that conflicts directly with all the values we celebrate at christmas and often forget throughout the year. It is a song of hope and truth. That song makes me cry every year, sometimes it has brought tears of gratitude, and other years, this year, the pain of loss and regret.
Awfully busy around here. To quote Roger Ailes (the good one), “the war on Christmas doesn’t plan itself.”
mrsmarks…
“In the 60s and 70s, the focus was on helping the poor and afflicted, ensuring justice and equality.”
Yes. The Church; all churches need to re-find their soul.
We knew who the Catholic kids were in elementary school, because they’d stop praying the Lord’s Prayer a few words before everybody else. They also had smudged foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Then — we stopped praying in school, and everyone was the same! I came home from the first day of fourth grade, very concerned, because we hadn’t said the Lord’s Prayer, and I thought my parents needed to know right away that Miss Rosencrans was not devout. Mom explained the rules about praying in school had changed.
–
Today, forty-three years ago, America’s most famous Lone Gunman was himself gunned down in Dallas.
Is everybody still at Mervyn’s for Black Friday? I thought ‘lakers who’d ventured out would have returned home by now. Sheesh, they opened at 4am here! *g*
Here in NYC the Holiday music started the day after Halloween. If the idea of a war on Christmas is making people want to sour on it before it even arrives, that’s the way to do it.
I start slowly adding Holiday music to my performance on the day after Thanksgiving, but now the media is three weeks ahead of me.
But this year I get the ultimate revenge. I have sent my “Christmas Card To The World” into a holiday season that has little new but the Playstation III to generate media hype.
If this project works it will change how Christmas is done in this country. Perhaps folks will begin to remember that the Holiday Spirit isn’t sold in stores.
I hope you all join in.
Dog-gone it, you made me cry.
I am getting ready to go to church to thank God for giving me the strength to bowl over an elderly woman in a walker and then to punch a 10 year old boy in the face so that I could get my hands on the new Playstation to give to my loving, God fearin’ children on the day I celebrate the birth of the stock market, I mean Jesus.
-GSD
Looks like another Ann Coulter fan running amok with a gun at the Miami Herald.
Maybe Bush and Cheney can take some pointers from Putin on how to get rid of them pesky reporters.
-GSD
Reports of US troops clashing with Shiite militia in Iraq. We may have begun the final death spiral.
Another lapsed Catholic here, too; I used to treasure those lovely, solemn moments in church as a kid, when the mystery of a god-made-into-man was more real and compelling than the man-made-god, when I could still feel the love of the omnipotent and omnipresent One transcendent in human words uttered in the Church and from the pulpit that encouraged care and love for one another. But the Church left me, now sees me as something less than it did 25 years ago. I used to think it was me, all my fault, a loss of faith on my part, but after the loss of our bishop here, replaced by a misogynistic freak who rejects the participation of women in readings or as altar servers, I know it’s not just me. I can no longer support an antiquity that denigrates more than 50% of its constituents, especially when doing so costs them their own future. I can have no part of the self-hatred it encourages, or its cultural suicide pact, particularly when pushed with healthy doses of toxic hypocrisy.
Agh. Like supporting Republicans under this Administration — it’s not compatible with long-term sustainability, and for some of us, short-term survival.
It’s a challenge to develop something to teach the kids in place of the traditions we used to hold dear; they want ritual, but they want something to which they can point and share with their friends. Not possible now, and trying to explain why is also challenging.
But we take it one step at a time, like this year’s big leap to a post-Santa household. The nine-year-old has painfully accepted there is no Santa, and is now beginning to replace this belief with something else. I tell him that now that he’s inside the circle and knows the truth, he is now as much Santa as the rest of us, and it’s up to him to begin to make the spirit of Christmas real for others. There really is a Santa, but he is the embodiment goodness and generosity, of selflessness and inner light that we celebrate in the darkness of the winter, when we need it the most.
Christmas and Santa are not, will never be found in Walmart for this reason.
well, chalk up another recovering Catholic here.
all, and maybe then some, of the guilt trips of being Jewish, with a superiority complex thrown in for good measure.
thanks for the
memoriesneuroses!It’s much easier to be a good person if you don’t have to worry about whether you’re doin’ it quite right.
post-Santa?
I really like the transition and path you’ve laid out for your nine-year-old, Rayne, and I shall take it under advisement should our household ever be in danger of post-Santaness.
Something I do not foresee.
Rayne @ 24
That is truly lovely. When I used to ask my mother if Santa was real, she would say: “Yes. He’s the spirit of giving.”
When I told her that was no answer, she’d say: “When you understand what I’m saying, then you’ll know the answer.”
And she was right!
One of the things I really don’t appreciate is when I hear one of my very religious relatives exclaiming that ‘those’ “aaaraaabs” deserve what they are getting from the Israelis. This grates on me.
Heh. Teddy, “post-Santa” is like “post-modern”.
My husband did remind the boy yesterday during a little down-at-the-mouth period, when the boy gave into a little grief over the loss of his former innocence (which is really what it was). I didn’t think my spouse would “get it”, not exactly being a particularly spiritual or religious person. But he did pull it off.
And you, Teddy, are surely no innocent any longer. You are just as post-Santa and post-modern as my son; you just don’t need the little reminder that there is joy in spite of the passing of innocence.
War at Christmas time? Hannukah time? On Ramadan? On Thanksgiving? On Mickey Mouse’s birthday? It’s wrong, 24/7/365. We want ‘em home. Bring ‘em on.
Reading over my shoulder, Fiance’ sez it’s time for a little talk with TSF. Wonder what that’s about.
Oh, dear.
This new method sounds horrid.
At this point, it is delusional to think that we can “win” the war in Iraq. Any delays is bringing home our troops are due to politicians wishing to cover their own asses.
War is over… if you want it.
It’s not a war, it’s a fiasco.
-GSD
Ah, Christmas. Here’s a lapsed Anglo-Catholic chiming in with fond memories of Christmases past–and despair over what’s become of it. Black Friday, today. Black Friday here because the retailers win out. Black Friday over there in Iraq because they’re burying over two hundred dead from Thursday. And that was Thanksgiving over here. The ironies abound.
dannyM @ 33
Ah, but ‘Lil Georgie is a war prez’dint. The war can’t lost on HIS watch. It’s got to be lost by another administration so that he can secure “his place” in history.
The man is delusional beyond all reckoning.
I’m obsessed with Christmas. Gotta hand it to the Catholics, back when I was a kid they had great music and I was in the choir.
But two things were added to my early yuletide. Seeing Alastair Simm in “The Christmas Carol” and the episode of “The Twilight Zone” where Art Carney played the drunken department store Santa.
They form my view of Christmas all these years later.
Do folks still sing “oy vey Maria?”
Bring them home now and Iraq becomes a pre-9/11 Afghanistan. I’d love to have them back now, but Bush screwed this thing up so bad that it needs to be fixed. Bush should go to jail for invading, but leaving now would make it much worse.
Hillary. You can run for anything you like to. But you can’t hide from Iraq.
“The nine-year-old has painfully accepted there is no Santa, and is now beginning to replace this belief with something else. I tell him that now that he’s inside the circle and knows the truth, he is now as much Santa as the rest of us, and it’s up to him to begin to make the spirit of Christmas real for others. There really is a Santa, but he is the embodiment goodness and generosity, of selflessness and inner light that we celebrate in the darkness of the winter, when we need it the most.”
Thanks, Rayne. My almost 8 yr old Sprout is beginning to be hep to the truth about Santa. This is how I want him to begin to experience it.
I, too, am a lapsed Catholic. My dad was agnostic but mom made us go to church every Sunday, and to catechism twice a week (she thought the nuns were bullies, so she wouldn’t send us to Catholic schools).
When I was in my late teens, I was really active in the youth group – sang in the choir and at the folk masses (my first solo!). Then we started going to Encounter weekends, which were a blast, but also the end of my Catholicism.
We discussed aspects of the church we didn’t like (treatment of women, birth control policies, the notion that everyone but us would go to hell) and were encouraged to explore ours and other religions. I did, found many others I liked better, and rarely go to a Catholic church anymore. Been to Quaker meetings, Episcopal services(yeah, I know, what’s the diff), a few temples and some UU services. I like them all better.
I do miss the mystery, though. The Latin masses seemed more sacred to me, perhaps because I could make up my own meaning for the words floating throught the church. I always felt more mystical, more spiritual, when I couldn’t understand what they were really saying.
I’ve been dreaming this morning of group policy discussions, position papers written by our blog community that might help us and others understand the direction we want the Dems to take and firm up what we’re looking for in our leaders. A girl can dream…
Lennon. Precious. Poignant.
Here’s a link he might appreciate:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006…..ation.html
Lennon – victim of another ‘alleged’ lone gunman. (backstory of MDC has some intriguing info.)
Video of Batiste on Hardball
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnb…..34/&fg
Coz,
Batiste sounds like Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove.
It seems to many of the military folks the only problem with the war was not enough dead Iraqis.
Check out Glenn Greenwald today on the morally bankrupt talking point about how the violence in Iraq was just the insurgents trying to get democrats elected.
-GSD
PoliticalCritic @ 39
It will be much worse the moment we “leave,” whether that moment is now or twenty years from now. Turkey, Iran, and Syria will not allow Iraq to be pre-9/11 Afghanistan. Containment will be their goal, ethnic cleansing their tool.
I’m eager to see Iraq in 2042 be like VietNam today, a robust US trading partner with a form of government unlike our own. The white man must now lay down his burden that is Iraq.
Troops
Home
NOW
hi mb!
GSD,
Dr. Strangelove
Yep ; )
Rayne @
25
Wow!…..Wow….right on! Especially that regarding the church. I was in Ohio at a very progressive parish when the pedophile ‘crisis’ hit in Boston, & then Cleveland had its own. I couldn’t believe the lies, the cover up, the string pulling, and worst of all – the support from, what I considered, the most unlikely of places.
My 10-year-old nephew went thru this last year and basically that’s what we told him – you are the spirit of Christmas.
Christmas is my favorite holiday. Santa, snow creatures, elves, Jesus & Mary, Hanukkah in the midst of all that, christmas trees, throw it all together, I really don’t care. We listen to all kinds of Christmas music from the operatic Carnegie Christmas to Trans-Siberian orchestra to the Ray Conniff Singers (The Little Drummer Boy), and Los Lobos.
There’s quite the intelligent discussion on the subject of Iraq Civil War right now, with a lot of depth and detail, at The Orangerie.
I just heard the accusation about insurgents using “booby trapped dolls” on Fox News…..
Reminds me of the stories of the Russians in Afghanistan using “booby trapped dolls” to kill the brave, freedom loving Afghanis back then.
Also, reminds me of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas “plundering and looting churches” and “defecating” on the altar.
I am sure we’ll be hearing about the insurgents taking babies out of incubators at any moment.
We sure love those moral outrages.
Abu Ghraib was just a “few bad apples” though.
What a waste of life.
-GSD
{{{hi TSF}}}
I was just wondering this morning if we could get together when I come up to Novato next time, probably in the new year.
Christianity gets a deserved bad wrap so long as Bush is allowed to pretend to be one without challenges.
General Jack D. Ripper: “Your Commie has no regard for human life. Not even his own”
Mommybrain @ 51
why — absolutely!
Speaking of death. . .
I’m still trying to brain-bleach my mind of the “projection” part of Pach’s post about political paranoiacs.
By the way, didja all notice how I finally figured out the “link” button above the comment box? I may be the last FDL commenter to get it. Another “How I Spent Thanksgiving” tale ends happily!
Thanks, David. I did not know there had been so much lately that touched you so nearly. Hope you are maintaining.
My spectacular daughter twigged to the Santa myth when she realized that poor kids got less than rich kids at Christmas.
No real Santa would do that to a poor kid. Ergo, Santa was not real.
She entertains poor kids at a community center Christmas party every year.
I was raised a Lutheran and was very active in church as a kid and youth. When serving in the U.S. Army during Vietnam, I went to a Lutheran chaplain and confessed to him (not like Catholic confession) my doubts about the morality of the war. As soon as I left the chapel, he called my commanding officer and warned him about me becoming a “commie dupe.”
The CO called me in. After hearing my version of the talk with the chaplain, Maj. Johnson told me that he agreed with me entirely, and showed me his letter of resignation, which he intended to submit on the first of the next month.
After I got out of the Army, one of my college roomies was writing a new translation of Martin Luther’s Von den Juden und ihren – “On the Jews and Their Lies.” My roommate, who was Jewish – and a helluvan oboe player – introduced me to a Luther I could never forgive.
I’m now a non-Christian, Gaian Universalist-Unitarian, who can’t honestly pledge the Nicean or Apostles’ Creed. At one time it had more to do with the creeps who held the Council of Nicea and so on than the creeds themselves, but I no longer accept the Christ Myth paradigm as anything more than a comforting lie which tries to absolve us from responsibility for screwing up the planet so very, very awfully.
My kids are old enough that I can say “Screw Christmas!” That will probably change for awhile when my grandchildren start arriving…..
TeddySanFran @ 54
Oh, goody! I’ll keep you posted on plans.
Cozumel @ 43
This is truly worth watching. The best part is near the beginning, although see Matthews roll his eyes is good, half-way through. The end is a waste of time.
I particularly like Batiste’s high-level political analysis about the disaparate groups, and who we should be fightint: “To the troops on the ground, they’re all the same.”
I think he meant they all look alike.
When people probe my religious beliefs – not easy to do, I prefer not to discuss it with relatives and strangers – the closest I can come is Taoism.
It’s a Gaian philosophy,as I understand it, with Mother Earth providing our lessons, and a kind of messy approach to The Way.
Daddybrain and I were married in a Taoist Companionating Ceremony (perfectly legal and binding in CA), where we promised to love, listen to and support each other, until… it no longer was in each of our best interests.
I still have the Catholic guilt but it’s mitigated somewhat by the knowledge (hat tip to William Shakespeare and Lao Tsu) that there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Alison @ 58
Wow. That’s extraordinary. What a kid!
Noel Coward used to say “If your friends only last through lunch. . .”
Wierd Al Yankovic’s ‘Christmas at Ground Zero’ always brings a tear to my eye.
Catch it at http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_CP3OKWGYE
Ed*ard Teller says:at 59
You may want to read Tom Harpur’s the Pagan Christ. The Christ myth predates Christianity. It seems to have the same root as Krishna. I too am a lapsed Catholic that loved the spirituality catholicism instilled in me but found the structures of the church to be archaic and not uplifting. As well my questions were not answered. However I guess I believe there is a Spirit that is present in all creation – not a guy in the sky. I have found truths in all religions and have found practices that are demeaning in all. I have found kindred souls in the UU, Unity and New Thought churches. I do think we need to become personally responsible for our own spiritual and ethical paths and not depend on formulas fed to us. I love the spirit of Christmas in that it reminds us to be loving to one another.
Try this version of Lennon’s Christmas Song for a jolt of reality…
end italics?
Please refresh your page. Oh well, sometimes it works :)
.
This is me….
I am now an agnostic, but I don’t begrudge others their beliefs. I have no problem celebrating Christmas with my family. But the idea of Malls opening at midnight the day after Thanksgiving for a Christmas sale. Just disgusting.
During the Vietnam war, I worked for the J.C. Penney Company. We were told that the early Christmas stuff was for the people who had relatives in Vietnam. If the Christmas decorations, presents, etc., weren’t bought early, they would not get to the troops over there in time. It was reasonable at the time; and, perhaps, accurate. But, it is just like our corporateteers to take a legitimate reason for early Christmas merchandising and use it for their own needs. The worker bees in my store often referred to our head manager as “Greedy Gus.” I personally love Christmas and do whatever I have to do to keep Scrooge’s like O’Reilly or any one else from ruining it for me. I am also one of those disgusting people who has almost all of my Christmas shopping completed. This way I will get to enjoy Christmas without having to stand in long lines any where. And, the best Christmas song ever is “Blue Christmas” by Elvis. No one can sing “Blue Christmas” like Elvis.