Samain Thanksgiving Moon
We have entered the corporate zone. Black friday is a religious event in board rooms across this great land, accountants eagerly showing spreadsheets of how much money will be made from poor people desperate for a decent present to give loved ones. Yes, once we’ve put away the gravy boats, the extra large platters, the aluminum foil we can move on to the biggest revenue source-I mean, holiday-of all: Christmas.
Looking out at Christmas from within my pagan earthship and now also from within the friendly confines of Congregation Beth Evergreen, I can marvel at how the Santa Claus, Christmas tree (a pagan German contribution), bright lights, banquets and family gatherings accreted themselves around a minor Christian holiday, the celebration of the incarnation.
This is weird in two ways. First, the accretions are much more fun than the actual holiday. Second, many people think the accretions are the holiday. Among those people are retailers who want to sell, sell, sell right now.
The notion of incarnation and its celebration hooked up with the Roman Saturnalia and the rest is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I don’t know what percentage of annual retail sales occur post-Thanksgiving, but I’m sure it’s more than you’d think. According to this site, 30% of all retail sales happen between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 40% for jewelers. Think about that. A holiday focused on a great God’s voluntary assuming of human form focuses now on ringing cash registers.
I know. This is a tired argument and I agree. Still, the irony is so thick at this time of year, I might have to get out my chainsaw to cut it. And, I’m not proposing to put the Christ back in Christmas. In fact, I’d be ok if Jesus (not yet the Christ, the messiah, at his birth) was decoupled from the festival of lights we call Christmas. In my opinion the gift-giving, song singing, wassail guzzling, home decorating holiday is just what we need as the Great Wheel turns toward its deepest darkness. Maybe take the Christ out of Christmas?
Thank about that idea though, the incarnation. Really, a pretty spectacular claim. God, the god of creation, of the flood, of the exodus, of the Sinai, of the ark of the covenant, of the Hebrew prophets, decides, like a genii in the Arabian nights, to decoct himself/herself into a living human body. Now that’s a reason for a holiday. As a cause for celebration, it’s pretty good.
My version though puts forward not an individual event in Bethlehem, not just incarnation in one child, but an incarnation in every child. Each babe is a true miracle, the universe creating and recreating creatures who can reflect on it. Life, as a random feature of development on this blessed planet, animates, literally, inanimate matter. Life is a godlike power, awesome and equal to any of the claims about the powers of Allah, G*d, Vishnu, Mithras, Ahura-Mazda.
We are born to wonder; there is no need to wonder why we are born. We are here to be in the world, touching and seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling the stuff of very stuff. We are born as witnesses to the furnace of creation inherent in each atom, molecule, dna strand, star, planet and comet. We have no more important duty than to be present as the world creates, recreates, as the cosmos does the same.
