At the request of The Masked Chicken, I offer this recent, brief Christmas post (from my blog, Old World Swine). More on the way as Christmas approaches. – T.J.
I love this little passage on the power of myth;
merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a
snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the
evergreens, so that the snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold.
(from Chesterton's The Everlasting Man
)The
Christ child, in a way unique among the world's religions, gives warmth
to the idea of Winter. In the bleakest, darkest time of year, His
cradle is the hearth-fire around which may gather all people of
goodwill.
The secular trappings can be fun and even spiritually
profitable for one who carries that fire in his heart, but they fail as
a substitute… like gathering around the picture of a fire. You might
find a very good picture on some wide-screen, high-definition
television… but try roasting marshmallows by it, or warming your
hands.
This is, I think, partly what irritates some irreligious
folk about the holy days. Our claim to have a real fire, with real
warmth, and our invitation to gather around it are to them
infuriatingly condescending, so they stay rooted in front of their
picture-fire, just to show us. "Too good to stand here with me, eh?
Think my picture is no good, eh? Snobs. I'd sooner stand here in the
cold than give you the satisfaction.".
As Lucy said to Susan: “Told you he was real!”
Great post, Tim.
I think this is exactly right, and that sense of resentment is perfectly captured in that bile-spewing anti-God sign in the Washington state capital.
This is their idea of equal time and free speech: Christians get a symbol representing their beliefs; Jews get a symbol representing their beliefs; atheists attack Christians and Jews.
It’s not like the Christians put up a display saying “All non-Christians go to hell” or “God will judge you sinner” or something like that. If atheists wanted a secular solstice symbol of some sort to call their own, something with a snowflake a sun, for instance, they could have it without attacking Christians and Jews.
But those touchy, sensitive “solstice atheists” feel excluded and affronted simply because so many religious and non-religious people (including “Christmas atheists”) are out there decorating and buying cards and presents and making merry, and somewhere at the bottom of it are a bunch of genuine believers celebrating the birth of their God, and nothing will do but a frontal assault on belief itself.
The “solstice atheists” don’t really want to celebrate the solstice at all the way Christians celebrate Christmas and Jews Hannukah. “Solstice” is simply their word for “Humbug!”
It’s sad.
Looking out my home office window enjoying my 45-foot spruce tree sparsely hung with Christmas lights from my adventure in tree-climbing last year…
Tim’s last paragraph reminds me of the Dwarfs in C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle”: “We won’t be taken in; the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs”. Aslan tells his followers that he cannot help the Dwarfs because they reject his help. Their prison is in their own minds, but they are imprisoned nonetheless.
“But those touchy, sensitive “solstice atheists” feel excluded and affronted simply because so many religious and non-religious people (including “Christmas atheists”) are out there decorating and buying cards and presents and making merry”
It’s really very Puritan… “that horrible suspicion that someone, somewhere is having a good time”.
You know the Dr. Seuss story “The Sneetches”? I appreciate the whole anti-prejudice message and all, but something always bothered me about that picture of the Star-Bellied Sneetches enjoying their frankfurter roasts while the poor Plain-Bellied Sneetches stood a ways off in the cold and the dark, looking on longingly. I can’t tell you how delighted I was when one of my kids (Jamie? Anna?) said to me, “Papa, why don’t the Plain-Bellied Sneetches just have their own frankfurter roasts?”
Of course, even then the parallel wouldn’t be complete, unless the Plain-Bellied Sneetches were welcome to join in the Star-Bellied Sneetches’s frankfurter roasts, with or without stars upon thars — just as atheists are welcome to join in any form of Christmas celebration they like, whether they believe or not, or, alternatively, to have their own forms of celebration for the solstice or whatever else they want, their own frankfurter roasts as it were.
But no. We have to have Plain-Bellied Sneetches setting up angry signs on the outskirts of the frankfurter roasts denouncing stars and everything they represent.
(On a side note, that Seussian pathetic, unresisting victimization — the poor Plain-Bellies standing in the cold and the dark looking longingly at the frankfurter roasts from which they are excluded, instead of just laughing off Star-Bellied pretensions and having their own frankfurter roasts — runs through a number of Seuss’s martyr-heroes: Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, Horton the elephant, etc. One of the things I like better about this year’s excellent Horton Hears a Who! movie in comparison to the original story is that the movie Horton stands up for himself as well as the Whos, and pushes back against the bullies.)
Perhaps they are bothered by the inherent contradiction of their protesting the historical event that originated the culture which established and warrants their intrinsic human dignity even as dissenters. I think the Christmas-time anti-Christmas propaganda may be their own childish and pathetic way of acknowledging the prominence of the season.
I think I would like to experience Christmas in winter. But since summer is my favorite season, I prefer Christmas also with actual warmth, besides the spiritual warmth.
Dear Tim J.
Your quote:
“…he is not merely the stuff called snow afterwards artificially given a human form, like a snow man. He is something that gives a new meaning to the white world and the evergreens, so that the snow itself seems to be warm rather than cold.”
Reminds me of something.
I may be one of the few people left who writes longhand letters to friends instead of sending e-mails (what kind of a second class relic would an e-mail be? Can you imagine John of Arc sending off a furious e-mail to the Burgundians?).
My life, however, is so boring that most of my letters would only be one paragraph long: “I got up, today, did pretty much what I did, yesterday, then I went to bed.”
So, I decided to give my friends something else – a long, newly written, story. Each letter became ten pages long and something to keep and read years later. I created a different central character for each friend. I’ve had created:
a clutzy knights (for all your medieval needs),
a mouse with an I. Q. of 300 who works with a retired police officer to make the M & M detective agency (Man and Mouse, of course) and quotes Latin proverbs right in the middle of crawling through pipes to catch the bad guy
a Japanese detective of Italian descent (his name is Ohno Watsamataforu)
and others. Each character gets involved in a series of stories as that friend gets each new letter. There must be at least 10 Michael Francis Dunning III stories out there (the name of the mouse), for instance.
I once wrote a really cool story involving a bed-ridden little girl princess entitled, “The Night of the Things Called Snow”.
I liked the title so much, I wrote a second story with the same name only set on a planet far, far away in the middle of a war, with spies and a secret project.
That quote above reminded me of that story I wrote long ago and the sudden appearance of the things called snow that warmed the heart of a little girl (of course, these snow flew into her room, turned into white billowy creatures and danced a dance for her and then flew on).
Sigh, to be young, again…
The Chicken
The silly thing about the athiests’ sign up north is that, when they start talking about the winter solstice, they are in fact becoming animist, invoking multiple gods, rather than atheists, denying God. Their very attempt to irk us belies their so called beliefs.
Tim, of course the real Puritans weren’t like that at all, quite the contrary! Though they did have some kind of peculiar issue with Christmas. But they loved a good time, brightly-dyed clothing, and rum.
I once wrote a really cool story involving a bed-ridden little girl princess entitled, “The Night of the Things Called Snow”.
One hopes it was cool. Otherwise the snow would melt.
Tim, of course the real Puritans weren’t like that at all, quite the contrary! Though they did have some kind of peculiar issue with Christmas. But they loved a good time, brightly-dyed clothing, and rum.
Massachusetts passed some rationing laws during one war in the colonial era. No cakes, pastries, etc. — except wedding cakes.
Even at war, it would be unthinkable to not have a wedding cake to celebrate.
The Chesterton quote is, so far as it goes, interesting, but it is rather more weighted to what FC is not (“snow” or “holly”) but leaves what he is (“something”) rather vague. Does (Did) Chesterton expand on the positive side?
But they loved a good time, brightly-dyed clothing, and rum.
They also liked beer, enough so that they limited its price. In studying our family history, one of my cousins ‘discovered’ that one of our 17th-century grandmothers in Mass. had been arrested by Puritan authorities there for (or at least charged with) overcharging for her beer. Her (successful) defense was that her beer was worth more because she used better ingredients.
There have been some factual inaccuracies above. I invite those with a sincere desire for the truth to do their own research. I don’t think my attempt at correcting the inaccuracies would bear any fruit based on my past experience.
I also invite people to read Jonathan Morris’s blog and catch him on Fox News or on the video clips that Fox provides on the internet. I became acquainted with him prior to his ordination to the priesthood but have lost touch with him. Despite my apprehensions about his religious family and any specific disagreements, I believe he offers the best Christian witness and teaching in any popular medium (including the subculture of lay apologetics). His recent commentary (the video in particular in an interview with Megyn Kelly) on the non-apology apology regarding Playboy was excellent. His point was that one apologizes not for the offense one gives to others but for the nature of one’s conduct itself.
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/12/15/frj_playboy/
I will leave it to the reader to discern how this relates to what I see as a certain deficiency with respect to certain aspects of certain reactions to this sign. (Hint: the issue should not be that Christians are offended by the sign or annoyed by it or what have you … that is really missing the meaining of Christmas; Christmas is not about Christians; it is about Christ, the impassible God and traditionally, the now impassible affective heart of Christ)
I intend this to be my last post for the foreseeable future. React to that as you will; I thank you in advance for your reaction, be it intentioned upon good for me or good for another at my expense or good for another neutral with respect to my good (in the first case the thanks shouhld be obvious; in the other cases it would be after the example of Francis of Assisi, whom I am venturing to cite as a model; I won’t venture to cite Christ as a model since I find it easier to be inspired by models that are human persons, Christ in traditional Catholic mythos and teaching not being a human person)
“I won’t venture to cite Christ as a model since I find it easier to be inspired by models that are human persons, Christ in traditional Catholic mythos and teaching not being a human person”
In all your study of Catholicism, were you perhaps absent when they talked about the incarnation?
Christ was and is a human person… as well as a Divine person.
Sorry, Tim, but Allegedly a Ruse is correct. Our Lord has two Natures, but only one Person. Nature answers the question “What?” and person answers the question “Who?” The answer to the question, “What is Jesus?” is: True God and True Man. The answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” is: The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is a human being, has a human nature, but is a divine Person.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #467(quoting the Council of Chalcedon): “…’the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.'”
CCC, #468 (quoting the Council of Constantinople, AD 553): “…’there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.'”
I don’t know if my post got lost, so sorry if this is a double…
Yes, bill912, of course you’re correct and I misspoke in a big way.
I got suckered into playing CT’s word games.
Let me put it another way; Jesus’ divine personage in no way diminishes his humanity or fittingness as a human role model.
Matheus,
I think I would like to experience Christmas in winter. But since summer is my favorite season, I prefer Christmas also with actual warmth, besides the spiritual warmth.
Of course! Christmas in Brazil!
Allegedly a Ruse,
There have been some factual inaccuracies above. I invite those with a sincere desire for the truth to do their own research. I don’t think my attempt at correcting the inaccuracies would bear any fruit based on my past experience.
Those with a sincere desire for the truth will do their own research with or without an invitation. If you’ve come up with something Tim missed in your own research, but are unwilling to share it with him and the rest of us (presumably to make a point about how unfairly you’ve been treated) then I hope you will forgive us for dismissing your statement entirely as yet another exercise in theatrics.
Despite my apprehensions about [Fr. Morris’] religious family and any specific disagreements, I believe he offers the best Christian witness and teaching in any popular medium (including the subculture of lay apologetics).
No doubt his readers are less obnoxious than the readers of any hypothetical lay apologetics blogs as well, eh?
I will leave it to the reader to discern how this relates to what I see as a certain deficiency with respect to certain aspects of certain reactions to this sign.
Lovely! Classic! Thank you!
(Hint: the issue should not be that Christians are offended by the sign or annoyed by it or what have you … that is really missing the meaining of Christmas; Christmas is not about Christians; it is about Christ, the impassible God and traditionally, the now impassible affective heart of Christ)
You’re absolutely correct. I think this is one of the things many of us missed in the whole PZ Myers uproar. We took his actions as a slap on the cheek, and rather than turning the other, we became enraged and… well, offended. It was weeks before I could think about the issue clearly, and it was a reminder to me that I desperately needed to get back to basics- to get on my knees in prayer. The next time an antitheist offends me, I will try and remember that it’s not about me and my precious sensibilities- it’s about my creator and savior who wants his children to come home to him- even the ones who (like me) have a history of mocking him. He wants to rescue the antitheists, not punish them. At any rate, it’s not my place to take offense. Thanks for the reminder.
I intend this to be my last post for the foreseeable future.
See you again soon.
“The next time an antitheist offends me, I will try and remember that it’s not about me and my precious sensibilities”
I don’t believe the reactions to P.Z. Myers on this blog can all be classified as simply a matter of offended sensibilities. If Myers had just thumbed his nose and said “up yours” to Catholics and other Christians, I would not have responded as I did.
But he did much more than that when he committed sacrilege against the body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. If there is any aspect of Catholic worship that deserves defending, this is it.
We can defend it, and we should. The fact that a man was recently charged with theft when he tried to steal several pieces of the consecrated host indicates that we are civilly as well as morally justified in doing so.
Myers firing was a different issue, in that I did not want my tax dollars to support a hateful bigot in a government job. I would feel the same if he had gone out of his way to offend Jews or Native Americans, or Muslims (which he did do, in fact) or Hindus or what have you.
I didn’t mean to get so far off topic. Having said my piece above, I would like to request that we please not let this thread turn into a re-heated P.Z. Myers debate.
Dear Sleeping Beastly
As Tim J. (or Tim Jones) already said, we had to become offended. Of course we have the obligation as Christians to turn the other cheek. But given the intention and proportion behind Myers’ action, turning the other cheek on that case would instead be obliging all Christian, and even Christiany itself as an institution, to turn the other cheek, so to speak, something that I think no one has the right to do.
Hmm…when I tried to post a few minutes ago, I didn’t get the green post screen. I got redirected (on several attempts) to a page to create a Typepad profile. Anyone know what that was all about?
I am not a fan of joining a service list (I get tons of junk e-mail, already). Looking over the terms of service for the Typepad Profile I was asked to create, the whole legal ramifications of using a handle after the Lori Drew case comes into play. If the TOS requires personal disclosure, as Typepad’s does, one can get into trouble not for malice, but because of the judges ruling, the use of a handle can be contrued to be a form of computer fraud against the TOS under certain circumstances (as in the Facebook TOS). Until the law is better settled there, this has become a geeks nightmare.
I hope this is just a glitch in the cookie my computer received. I doubt anyone spoofed my handle. I seem to be able to post alright now (if this goes through). Any guesses?
Sorry to interrupt the thread, I just had to try to post while I can.
The Somewhat Confused Chicken
Dear TMC
It happened to me also. But went beck to the comment page and waited a few minutes to try again.
Perhaps Typepad also wants Jimmy to come back regularly and is provoking those bugs…:)
To flesh out the “turning the other cheek” admonition from our Lord;
I have always believed that when it comes to being personally attacked, “turning the other cheek” would be altogether appropriate, even preferred. It would be a powerful witness. However, when it comes to others being attacked, it is a different matter.
If I saw an old woman being mugged and, by way of help, could only offer “Turn the other cheek, my good woman! Think of your Christian duty!” I hope someone would kick me in the ass.
Her duty before God in that instance is her business, but clearly MY duty would be to protect her by “offering my body as a sacrifice”… the other guy’s body might run into some problems, as well.
Dear Tim J.,
The whole argument can be summarized by the Lord’s admonition:
There is no greater love than a man lay down his life for a friend.
When one turns the other cheek for an personal attacker, one is laying down one’s life for person who is a friend by your love of them, but does not know it.
When you take on an attacker, you are being friend to both, since the person being attacked is defended and the person doing the attacking is prevented from doing further injury to not only the other person but to his own soul.
Thus, in both cases, you are laying down your life for a friend, but the relationship is different in the two cases. Love has the power to turn an evil into a good, but only if it acts. In the first case, the act is to turn the other cheek. In the second, it is defending the person being attacked. In both case, love seeks to mitigate the evil.
The Chicken
Back to Christmas…I offer a short poem from Madeline L’Engle:
Advent [From the Book, Winter of the Heart]
This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason,
there’d have been no room for the Child.
The Chicken
Awesome post! I actually quoted from Everlasting Man today in my blog as well. Such an amazing book!
Love the commentary, Jimmy. Thanks.
Oh, and your comments actually go right along with a post on my blog last week on how the Atheists are out sharing their winter solstice joy up in Washington. “Oh the Joy of the Winter Solstice!” http://tinyurl.com/5lu7wg
Signs like that, like your “picture-fire” you mention, only reveal the real substance of what these atheists have to offer us Christians in place of our truth – NOTHING. They claim to promote a season of “reason”, yet they offer us NO REASON to celebrate the winter solstice instead of our Christmas. They only have attacks, distortions, and name-calling – nothing positive to offer. It’s embarrassing for them…except our fashionable “virtue” of tolerance prevents society from pointing that out.
As Christians, we need to stop going on the defense so much when we are attacked…just let their picture-fire attack our real fire all they want. Let them clash and we’ll see which one is still left at the end.
When you take on an attacker, you are being friend to both, since the person being attacked is defended and the person doing the attacking is prevented from doing further injury to not only the other person but to his own soul… you are laying down your life for a friend
Not necessarily. In defending party “A” and taking on party “B”, one might be acting out of selfish ambition, greed, malice, deceit, envy, arrogance, etc. How is that laying down one’s life? Not all “defense” is legitimate, and not all “attack” is unjust. And taking on / attacking party “B” doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be prevented from doing further injury to anyone and may incite him to do more.
they stay rooted in front of their picture-fire, just to show us. “Too good to stand here with me, eh? Think my picture is no good, eh? Snobs. I’d sooner stand here in the cold than give you the satisfaction.”… I think this is exactly right, and that sense of resentment is perfectly captured in that bile-spewing anti-God sign in the Washington state capital.
It’s my view that their “bile” is but against their strawman “God” that they’ve pictured and their straw understanding of religion that they use to frame it. Only if I were to confuse God and religion with their straw versions would I think they’re opposed to what I believe in. As such, I join them in their disbelief of their straw version. They point to their picture with a sign that says, “It’s fake. It offers no real warmth.” Who disagrees with that?
For the life of me, I can’t conceive of any purely reasonable basis for celebrating the Earth’s being at a particular point in its orbit around the sun. It seems like any thoroughly scientific materialist would see such a thing as (in the words of Mr. Potter of Bedford Falls) “sentimental hogwash”.
The same goes, of course, for birthdays and anniversaries and that sort of thing.
Of course, maybe this tendency to celebrate for no particular reason will help these atheists to understand why I celebrate with a prayer that particular point in the Earth’s rotation called “sunrise” every day. I celebrate it because it is worth celebrating, and because it is a miracle that it happens at all.
Tim, Chicken, and Matheus,
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said “we.” Mostly I had myself in mind. What I finally came to realize was:
A) The desecration caused no actual harm to Christ- only to Prof. Myers.
B) Christ allowed it to happen and suffered through it willingly 2000 years ago.
C) He allowed it to happen in 2008 as well; he is not a defenseless old woman who needs my help, but the lord of all creation who suffers such indignities daily as part of his larger plan for sanctifying me and my brothers and sisters.
I don’t know what response was called for from everyone, but I eventually got the message that my own anger at Prof. Myers stemmed from pride and deficient charity, and the only thing I could do that would do any good at all was to pray for him.
FWIW, my take on outrage and resistance.
Dear SB and SDG
As soon as I read the point A) from SB’s comment above I recognized SDG’s eloquent post, which by the way has been quoted and mentioned on a very famous Catholic podcast.
I couldn’t possibly find anything theologically or doctrinally objectionable about that reasoning. From a pastoral point of view, though, it kinda bothers me: If that sophisticated and nuanced position comes across on a large basis as something like “You know, this Eucharistic Desecration stuff isn’t really much of a big deal, not even for us Catholics“, in my humble opinion, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that it will foster less respect for the Blessed Sacrament and for Catholicism, not more. On these ocasions I can’t help feeling grateful to God that we still have good ‘ole Bill Donohue to do at least some of the “dirty job” for us:)
Fine, but Christ being God, He was able as such to take good out of the whole thing through His Divine Providence, and in that case we already know that through Scriptures and Tradition. In the present case, it’s harder for us to know.
Of course SB, God won’t tamper with our free will, but by 2008 He had already entrusted His Sacrament to the care of the Church and of us, and I think I may safely presume that He is counting on that as a consequence of His not being defenseless.
“He allowed it to happen in 2008 as well; he is not a defenseless old woman who needs my help, but the lord of all creation…”
Yes, but if we extend that logic to other situations, it doesn’t neatly apply. For instance; God – being God – *could* supply all the needs of the poor without any help from us. His omnipotence doesn’t relieve us of our responsibilities to the poor, though.
While some may be called to a kind of pacifism, others may be called to a physical defense of the Church and the sacraments (and even of our pacifist brothers and sisters).
That is insightful and well put, and a valid and reasonable concern, Matheus.
Here is how I see it. What one emphasizes in any given situation depends on what one regards as the clear and present danger in any given circumstance. At all times we navigate our little barques through narrow channels with dangerous shoals on either side. As we see the rocks loom large on one side or the other, we adjust accordingly to port or to starboard. Neither direction is right or wrong in itself, only helpful or harmful in particular circumstances.
Such circumstances include the disposition of one’s audience. My comments are addressed to pious and devout Catholics for whom I see less danger of irreverence toward the Blessed Sacrament than of inordinate or unhelpful reactions to Eucharistic desecration by others. Where right and proper adoration of the Eucharist is not properly accompanied by an adequate appreciation of the points I tried to highlight in my post, incidents of Eucharistic desecration may pose undue occasions of emotional stress, and thereby of sins against charity and the like. Seeking quite rightly to express our veneration of the Eucharist, we may then inadvertently expose ourselves as well as the Eucharist to further abuse.
The thoughts I offered represented what I thought would be the most helpful thing for the needs of those around me most likely to have ears for what I had to say. I readily acknowledge there are other circumstances and audiences for which my comments would merely reinforce existing patterns of apathy and irreverence, and thus do more harm than good. I can’t help that. I did my best to respond to what I saw as the need of the moment, which is all I can hope to do.
Dear SDG
Yes, that’s the heart of the issue. That’s why what prompted me to have the feeling I descibed wasn’t reading your post on Jimmy’s blog, but listening to the podcast episode that I linked above. I ask you to listen to it on its entirety to see for yourself.
And thanks for your attention.
Matheus, SDG, and Tim,
Good points as ever. I think there’s also a difference between defense and retribution. I fully respect the parishioners who defend the Eucharist. I’m also fairly convinced that any acts of reprisal (verbal, legal, or otherwise) were and would be counterproductive. At any rate, my own feelings on the matter were not about defending the defenseless so much as they were about feeling personally affronted, and were thus inappropriate.