Today, a reprint of the essay, "The Night My Father Shot Santa," under "Essays" in the website.
A brief one today, as we are all abuzz like most everyone else with Christmas. This I could not pass up: while having breakfast, we listened to the music of our local avant-guard radio station, and this morning they had a Blue Grass Christmas. We first head the sincere strains of simple country people (or so they represent themselves) singing about Bethlehem and the baby Jesus and such, all very good. But then the selection veered to the "trailer park" red necks, with songs about houses dead cold from dead cold marriages, and one that I think is a bit famous, about a dysfunctional hick family's Christmas, where we repeatedly hear about more runs to the Quicky Mart for booze mixers, cigarettes and tampons. "Noel, noel" our singer croones in sloppy, maybe even drunk Southern. Ah, yes, a Christmas without enchantment, as dead as a holiday hangover.
Yes, one of my greatest fears, this disenchantment, because it would be so easy to fall into it, like a drunk into a culvert. Right now, it is dark with clouds outside, as it has been for two weeks straight, the temps in the mid-thirties, the ground thawed and the ice running out of the rivers. Every now and then, the clouds spit out a little rain mixed with sloppy frozen stuff, and if there were a good game on now, it would be nice to simply pop a beer or three and forget about the whole Noel thing, as gray and lifeless as it is.
For those raised Christian, we can recall what this season means, as historically inaccurate as it is (the timing of it to 25 December). God on Earth, a reprieve from darkness, a way out of our conundrum of exactly what ails us, disenchantment. Yet, disenchantment is oddly a product a civilization, for as filled with revenge and blood lust as many primitives were, disenchantment was never a problem. For them, life was full of spirits, even to the point of distraction and worry. Magic was not only possible but probable and a regular occurrence. Less so, but still alive in spirit were the peasants of near-present day and the medieval past. Life by then was often a drudgery, but still, mystery filled the local woods and late nights - again, not always welcome, but alive none the less.
For me, and for most of us I believe, we have to conjure this spirit of enchantment, for in daily life it is gone, lost to the world of sensibleness, of common sense. That our common sense is dead wrong in the aggregate cannot penetrate our way of thought - life is cause and effect, as predictable in most ways as billiard balls on a slate table. What, then, do we of such sensibilities make of Christmas?
We look to the children, and to our memories of ourselves as children. They can believe in anything, even Elves - and even God on Earth. For the rest of us, who knows?, for we can be of any religion in our current world and never act or feel as if the truths of these religions affect us. We have, in large part, been made numb.
Why this is so has been explored many times in this blog ,and will be again, for it essential to understand this if any re-enchantment of the world is to begin. But for those of us who are Christians, and for those others who are close to the heartbeat of the cultural ethos, we know what Christmas calls for - not a tear-filled admission of our sins for redemption, but a return to the time when we could feel enchantment. In that way, Christmas is for everyone, for we all need this, this return, this break in the billiard ball mentality.
And it should be noted that this naivete, this child-like wonder that we call back to, is more real than our dead world of function. We know, really, almost nothing, and if we could admit it, we would have to admit that our collective knowledge is that of a small child still. For still, we are as dependent on the forces around us as ever, and still as strangely protected, like children who have no idea why they have earned such protection.
But we know why, and that is what Christmas proclaims: rejoice! In this vast turmoil of wind and sun and surf and stars, a spirit reigns to protect you, to guide you. It lives through the world, in all things at all times. Life is not dead, but alive, and ultimately, overwhelmingly good. And if we can't see that always, then we must see it now and then, especially in the star of Bethlehem as the banjo pickers sing. It is there and has always been there, and now is the time, once again, to begin our re-enchantment. Merry Christmas, FK
A brief one today, as we are all abuzz like most everyone else with Christmas. This I could not pass up: while having breakfast, we listened to the music of our local avant-guard radio station, and this morning they had a Blue Grass Christmas. We first head the sincere strains of simple country people (or so they represent themselves) singing about Bethlehem and the baby Jesus and such, all very good. But then the selection veered to the "trailer park" red necks, with songs about houses dead cold from dead cold marriages, and one that I think is a bit famous, about a dysfunctional hick family's Christmas, where we repeatedly hear about more runs to the Quicky Mart for booze mixers, cigarettes and tampons. "Noel, noel" our singer croones in sloppy, maybe even drunk Southern. Ah, yes, a Christmas without enchantment, as dead as a holiday hangover.
Yes, one of my greatest fears, this disenchantment, because it would be so easy to fall into it, like a drunk into a culvert. Right now, it is dark with clouds outside, as it has been for two weeks straight, the temps in the mid-thirties, the ground thawed and the ice running out of the rivers. Every now and then, the clouds spit out a little rain mixed with sloppy frozen stuff, and if there were a good game on now, it would be nice to simply pop a beer or three and forget about the whole Noel thing, as gray and lifeless as it is.
For those raised Christian, we can recall what this season means, as historically inaccurate as it is (the timing of it to 25 December). God on Earth, a reprieve from darkness, a way out of our conundrum of exactly what ails us, disenchantment. Yet, disenchantment is oddly a product a civilization, for as filled with revenge and blood lust as many primitives were, disenchantment was never a problem. For them, life was full of spirits, even to the point of distraction and worry. Magic was not only possible but probable and a regular occurrence. Less so, but still alive in spirit were the peasants of near-present day and the medieval past. Life by then was often a drudgery, but still, mystery filled the local woods and late nights - again, not always welcome, but alive none the less.
For me, and for most of us I believe, we have to conjure this spirit of enchantment, for in daily life it is gone, lost to the world of sensibleness, of common sense. That our common sense is dead wrong in the aggregate cannot penetrate our way of thought - life is cause and effect, as predictable in most ways as billiard balls on a slate table. What, then, do we of such sensibilities make of Christmas?
We look to the children, and to our memories of ourselves as children. They can believe in anything, even Elves - and even God on Earth. For the rest of us, who knows?, for we can be of any religion in our current world and never act or feel as if the truths of these religions affect us. We have, in large part, been made numb.
Why this is so has been explored many times in this blog ,and will be again, for it essential to understand this if any re-enchantment of the world is to begin. But for those of us who are Christians, and for those others who are close to the heartbeat of the cultural ethos, we know what Christmas calls for - not a tear-filled admission of our sins for redemption, but a return to the time when we could feel enchantment. In that way, Christmas is for everyone, for we all need this, this return, this break in the billiard ball mentality.
And it should be noted that this naivete, this child-like wonder that we call back to, is more real than our dead world of function. We know, really, almost nothing, and if we could admit it, we would have to admit that our collective knowledge is that of a small child still. For still, we are as dependent on the forces around us as ever, and still as strangely protected, like children who have no idea why they have earned such protection.
But we know why, and that is what Christmas proclaims: rejoice! In this vast turmoil of wind and sun and surf and stars, a spirit reigns to protect you, to guide you. It lives through the world, in all things at all times. Life is not dead, but alive, and ultimately, overwhelmingly good. And if we can't see that always, then we must see it now and then, especially in the star of Bethlehem as the banjo pickers sing. It is there and has always been there, and now is the time, once again, to begin our re-enchantment. Merry Christmas, FK
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