Today, a reprint of the Essay, "The Night My Father Shot Santa," under Essays in the website.
This morning, I turned off the morning news and put on a very, very mellow Christmas CD as I cooked breakfast. It was something of a surprise, as my waking, squawking self was suddenly confronted with peace, not the usual morning mood. And at that, I began to think of what I had read the night before, and of the implications of Christmas.
Imagine a neighborhood on the wrong side of town, where all of human squalor is concentrated in a few blocks as a microcosm of addled human kind, where even the good people are tempted, and often give in, to dishonesty; where even the best of people walk in fear and distrust and near constant anxiety amid the rubbish of the streets. Then imagine that the incomprehensible force of the cosmos is suddenly born into this neighborhood, the child destined to recall all that he came from, to become the man who would remain aware that the nebulae are cotton-candy playthings of wonder, that time and eternity are only marvelous tricks of perception that reveal, as only he could know, the nature of the Ultimate. And there he is, growing older, a mission forming in his mind, as he gazes to the sky from his squalor and ponders this humanity that is asleep, unaware of its divine nature, of its possibilities and intended destiny. How does such a man deal with such dead-minded souls? How does he awaken them? How does he get them out of the waste that they have made for themselves?
And so we have Christmas and all that follows from that birth. Whether one has faith or not, it is an idea born from inner knowledge and despair, and ultimately, from hope. We know, in flashes of perception, what life could be, and then we are left again with our daily grind. Something needs to break this spell; someone needs to lead his sheep, for sheep we are. In recognizing even the possibility of this savior, we are recognizing what we have become and that we must do something, must change something fundamental, to become more, to become what the infinite night of stars promises as it tickles our consciousness.
Believe or not, it is our wish that this be so; even now, we have not been so abandoned as to not know that things are not as they should be. And so we proclaim Merry Christmas as the words of hope, knowing that our time has come, or will come, but surely must come. Merry Christmas. FK
This morning, I turned off the morning news and put on a very, very mellow Christmas CD as I cooked breakfast. It was something of a surprise, as my waking, squawking self was suddenly confronted with peace, not the usual morning mood. And at that, I began to think of what I had read the night before, and of the implications of Christmas.
Imagine a neighborhood on the wrong side of town, where all of human squalor is concentrated in a few blocks as a microcosm of addled human kind, where even the good people are tempted, and often give in, to dishonesty; where even the best of people walk in fear and distrust and near constant anxiety amid the rubbish of the streets. Then imagine that the incomprehensible force of the cosmos is suddenly born into this neighborhood, the child destined to recall all that he came from, to become the man who would remain aware that the nebulae are cotton-candy playthings of wonder, that time and eternity are only marvelous tricks of perception that reveal, as only he could know, the nature of the Ultimate. And there he is, growing older, a mission forming in his mind, as he gazes to the sky from his squalor and ponders this humanity that is asleep, unaware of its divine nature, of its possibilities and intended destiny. How does such a man deal with such dead-minded souls? How does he awaken them? How does he get them out of the waste that they have made for themselves?
And so we have Christmas and all that follows from that birth. Whether one has faith or not, it is an idea born from inner knowledge and despair, and ultimately, from hope. We know, in flashes of perception, what life could be, and then we are left again with our daily grind. Something needs to break this spell; someone needs to lead his sheep, for sheep we are. In recognizing even the possibility of this savior, we are recognizing what we have become and that we must do something, must change something fundamental, to become more, to become what the infinite night of stars promises as it tickles our consciousness.
Believe or not, it is our wish that this be so; even now, we have not been so abandoned as to not know that things are not as they should be. And so we proclaim Merry Christmas as the words of hope, knowing that our time has come, or will come, but surely must come. Merry Christmas. FK
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