Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii!

As we bustled about, my Jewish children helping assemble the ancient plastic tree that has graced their grandparents house since the mid 1970s, my sixteen year old son gave me a grin.  It was that grin kids get when they realize they know something their parents don't.

"You seriously haven't heard about KFC?  For Christmas?  In Japan?  Seriously?"

I said, um, no?

"Oh, man.  The Japanese aren't Christian, pretty much none of them.  But they celebrate Christmas by all going to KFC.  It's like this huge thing.  Like, everybody goes. You totally need to look that up, Dad."

And so I did.  And as I goggled at the peculiarity of it, I thought, dang, how did I not know this?

It was both very strange and oddly familiar.

Very strange, in the way that seeing elements of your culture sorted, adjusted, and modified through the lens of other cultures is invariably bizarre, a funhouse mirror.  Corporate culture, of course, is gleefully willing to spread itself.  It's aggressively viral, embedding and adopting and engaging itself with every other form it encounters.

Still and all, seeing the features of our seasonal festivities threaded into another culture is odd.  Odder still is that there is absolutely zero connection between this event and any Christian connection.  None whatsoever.  Japan has some small Christian communities, but they're in a tiny minority.

What happens in Japan on Christmas doesn't have the character of European or Slavic Christmases, which arise from a long, complex, and historic connection with the faith.  Neither does it resemble the traditions that have arisen in Latin America, or in Africa.   There is no faith component at all.

It's the sort of tradition that arises solely from a particularly successful ad campaign, intentionally designed for a particular culture.  It is pure, unadulterated, uncut secular Christmas.

In that, it is remarkably like the Christmas we Americans can all observe around us right about this time every year.  Just a slightly different white guy with a beard.

Man, this planet is a strange place.

Going to Church on Christmas Morning

This morning, I awoke early, as the earliest light of dawn was just beginning to crowd the stars from the sky.   After starting the coffee, I snapped the leash on the dog, and stepped out into the crunchy crispness of the day.   With the pup snuffing and meandering along with me, I walked the sidewalks of the very quiet neighborhood.

The lighted electronic diodes that shone from every other house were bright in the silence, but what caught my eye more was the subtle sparkle from the grass.  With the streetlights playing across the morning's frost fall, the little suburban lawns of my neighborhood glistened like windblown tinsel.   It was rather lovely, if you were lucky enough to be awake to see it.

Then it was homeward, to breakfast, and to tweak the Christmas Day sermon.   After cereal, then coffee, and then some more coffee, I began getting dressed to go to church.  The layers went on, one after another.  The socks.  Then another pair of socks.  Then long johns.  Then corduroy pants and my clerical shirt and collar.  Then armored boots.  Then my Kanetsu wind blocking electrically heated jacket.  Then my Roadcrafter viscoelastic-armored riding suit.  Then armored gloves.  Then over-gloves.  Then a wind-triangle to protect my neck from the subfreezing winds.  Funny, given how I used to hate having to get "dressed up" for church as a kid.

Then, having conveyed Christmas wishes to wife and lads, the helmet.

And I was off, motoring out of our neighborhood, on to a warm and cozy service on Christmas morning.

I was glad of it, and remembered to be thankful as I prepped.

Last year, I did not know yet what this day would be like.  Would I be preaching or leading worship?  Or just job-seeking?  Or just sitting in my basement frittering away meaningless hours on my PS3?

It was a void.  All of the traditions and expectations of the prior seven years were coming to an end, and there was no certainty.   In 2010, the where and the how of Christmas 2011 were hidden from me, still shrouded in the creative potential of our Maker.

I could not have anticipated where I am now.  Looking back across the span of my memory, I know I did not.

To the anxieties that would occasionally rise in that former self, I wish I could whisper a quiet word of encouragement.  It's going to be fine.  You'll like it.

Hope is such a good thing to remember, particularly this time of year.  As much as it can be obscured by consumerism and "Christmas Wars," that is kind of the point of the season, after all.

Christmastime with the Cultists

Yesterday, with friends and family in tow, we went a-wandering over to a restaurant that's been opened up in my parent's neighborhood.  For decades, the place was my families' primary haunt for pizza, a little place run by a couple of Greeks.  

The day I went to see the first Star Wars movie with my parents, we ate out at Prima Pizza.  We were regulars.  My folks got to know the owners and the waitresses.  It was pleasant.

But then it closed, as businesses do.  It sat empty for years.

A year or two ago, a little vegan place opened up there.   It's a Loving Hut, one of several hundred franchises around the world run by...well...a cult.  It's the Cult of Supreme Master Ching Hai, who is apparently always referred to as SupremeMasterChingHai, all one word.  She's a bleached-blonde Vietnamese lady who is really into enlightenment, animals, and a vegan diet, and who apparently has gathered quite the following.

In order to run one of the franchises, you need to be a member in good standing of suprememasterchinghai-ism, or whatever it is they call it.

But vegetarian food is vegetarian food, so we went to check it out.   Prima Pizzeria was once again a restaurant, basically, although a bit different.  The decor was spare, and there was a big screen TV on one wall presenting Supreme Master Television, a chirrupy 24 hour channel of positive thinking, happy animals, vegetarian boosterism, and teaching of Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Outside of that, it was surprisingly innocuous.  And the food was really rather tasty.

Most striking to me, though, was what the cultists were playing in the background.

It wasn't a droning, barely audible repetition of the words "Ching Hai is your master, you love Ching Hai, you love vegetables and puppies and kittens, Ching Hai is the Supreme Master..."

It was a medley of Christmas music.   O Holy Night, in particular, seemed to be a favorite.

There really is no escaping Christmas music this time of year.

A Very Starbucks Christmas

Last night, as I chugged a thousand words closer to the manuscript I'm currently working on, I did so whilst ensconced in one of the thirty-seven Starbucks within a five mile radius of my home.  I'm there regularly for a few hours on Tuesdays, while my little guy rocks out at the School of Rock for a three hour band practice.

This last week, it being a whole week before Thanksgiving, Starbucks did its Christmas morph, going from being pumpkin-orange and Fallish to being full-throttle red and white Lil' Baby Jesus cheer. Yeah, it's not Thanksgiving yet, but given the failure of the Salted Mocha Caramel Turkeychino last year, I guess the guys at corporate just assume that they may as well go with Christmas.

Take note, O ye who fret about the War on Christmas: there was plenty of Christmas on display at Starbucks.  It's the Christmas Blend, not the Holiday Blend, so our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be honored by the "signature blend of aged Sumatran coffee and other Asia/Pacific and Latin American beans" that most fully gives Him the Glory.

The background music piped in wasn't just Jingle Bells and other unacceptably pagan accretions.  It included indy-lite palatable versions of the Little Drummer Boy, and then a full on version of Silent Night.  As the sound system cooed about the Holy Infant So Tender and Mild, I found myself wondering why it was bugging me so.

The rendition wasn't a bad one, but Silent Night is a sacred song, one that evokes candlelight and gentle reverence.  As marketplace muzak, it felt misused.  Desacralized.

The three twenty-something baristas working there seemed to be struggling a bit with the music, too, although for a totally different reason.  One commented to another that he wasn't sure he could live with hearing this music, over and over again, for the next two months.

I chimed in, asking how long they'd been playing it, and asking if they could survive another month of it.  Another barista responded that it was going to go longer, out 'till mid-January, to squeeze every last drop of Christmas out of the season.  He groaned.  It was clear that they'd be totally sick of all of these songs by the time they were finally given permission not to play them any more.

Twenty minutes later, as I was the only patron in the store, the assistant manager asked me if I'd mind if they changed it over to blues for a bit.

Whatever's going to keep you sane, I replied.

So blues it was.

I don't think Jesus minded the switch.

Traditions, Loss, and Light

Each of us have our holiday traditions.  In my household, one of the primary Christmas celebrations comes with the Assembling of the Tree.  The Tree, in this instance, is carted down from the attic in my parents house, where it has dwelled in all it's marginally realistic plastic glory since 1978.   This year, the task fell almost completely to my boys, for whom the Assembling of the Tree is a touchstone of the season.   Then we have a carol sing, which culminates in a completely chaotic rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas, replete with dance moves appropriate to each of the days.   The celebration has evolved over the years.  We no longer read The Night Before Christmas, for example.  But as one tradition goes, another comes, and the event remains a blissful Yuletide hootenanny.

Those patterns of life, those affirmations of our identity, well, they're important.

As I put the finishing touches on the second of the two sermons for the week, and reflect back on the Christmas Eve service that just passed, I can't help but feel a teensy bit o' wistfulness about this season.  Back on Christmas Eve of 2003, I was part of my first Christmas service here at Trinity.  It was big, exuberant, and completely chaotic.  The week before was a whirl of planning and calling and patching things together.  It shimmered with tension and anticipation.  The night itself was joyous release, chock full of hope and music and lights and holy messiness. 

And tonight was good too.  But it is, without question, the last year I'll celebrate Christmas here.  Next year, I'll be somewhere different.  I don't have a clue where, but I know that most of the faces and the sacred spaces that have defined much of the last decade of my Christmases will not be the same.  As necessary as that change is, it remains nonetheless somewhat difficult to process.

And that awareness reminds me that for many, this season and its traditions can be intensely painful.  The rituals and patterns that can for most us evoke warm fuzzies around Christmas have a very different feeling for others.  For those who've lost jobs and struggled to find their footing, the consumptiveness of the season can leave them feeling stressed and helpless.  For those who've lost loved ones, this time of togetherness can be a powerful reminder of absence, as that expected presence...well...just isn't there.   For those who've had relationships collapse, this can be a reminder of times of intense pain.  For those who are just plain old alone, or struggling with depression, it can be a brutal time, when feelings of isolation are heightened.

Remembering those souls and their struggles is an important part of this season.  Not the buying.  Not the stress.  Not even the reconnecting with friends and family.  It's those souls toward whom the heart of this season is directed.  It's to those who are living in darkness that the light most intensely shines.

Mythbusting

Among the many faith feeds that pour into into my reader, there's lately been a little meme that's struggling to get off the ground.  It's surfaced here and there, mostly in significantly minor print news outlets.  It's fluttered around like a little fledgling knocked early from it's nest, almost catching viral air...and then falling back...and then almost catching viral air...and then falling back.

The faith "issue" in question was an ad buy by American Atheists, in which they pitched up a billboard showing wise men on camels, following yonder star, with Mary and the babe in a manger under a crystal blue sky.  It's really a very pretty scene.  Runneth the text: "You know it's a Myth...This Season, Celebrate Reason!"

It's provocative, or is intended to be, although the scene itself is so lovely that you end up getting lost in Christmas warm fuzzies evoked by those cool radiant azures.  

Siiiilent...NIiiight...HOOOOOooo...leee...ahem. 

 But after that first day or so, it seems that...well...no-one really cares.  Perhaps that's a factor of it being slapped up near New York City, where it's really a whole bunch harder to be provocative.  "Honey?  That's 'provocative?' Did you see that avant-garde performance artist, oh, what's his name, last week?  I still can't figure out how he got the entire narthex in there."  Even Fox News, after first taking the bait, seems to have gotten distracted and wandered away, which is saying something.  Shoulda done it in the bible belt, kids.

Oddly enough, I wish this effort had gotten more legs. 

Because the billboard is right.  The story of Christmas is a myth. 

Not, of course, in the shallow Mythbusters sort of way.  Myths are not urban legends.  They aren't trivial fabrications.  They aren't falsehoods told and retold and retold until finally some smart levelheaded soul shouts out that the Emperor is totally nekked.

Myths are the stories that define culture.  They are the stories that frame the identity and the purpose of a people.  They provide the overarching narrative of a society, and are told and retold as a way of reaffirming who we are.  Any competent historian or anthropologist can tell you this.  That's not how the reality television level of thinking understands it, of course.  But if you've been college educated at any halfway decent school, and have gotten a liberal education in the classical sense of the word, then this understanding of the role of mythopoetics isn't news.

We understand the world through narrative.  It's our nature.  The bright, sentient course of action is to celebrate in and rejoice in those stories that define us.  Sing the carols.  Feel the gracefulness of the season, its hope, its essential themes of promise and new birth and restoration.  It's the reasonable thing to do.

Christmas Ego

As my congregation lurched and fuddled it's way towards another Christmas Eve service, things felt...well...more complicated than usual. Since I've been at my tiny kirk, our services have been held jointly with the Korean congregation with which we share space. Many years, it's been a great sprawling buffet of a worship, crammed to bustin' with skits and songs and music, all cobbled together at what seems like the last minute. The message I'd deliver would be prepared and delivered jointly with my Korean counterpart, blended and woven together over several sessions of mutual study and preparation. It was a joyously sloppy whirlwind event, a hoaah Jackson Pollack celebration of the Christ child.

This year, though, things going in were messier, and not in a good way. The Korean congregation fell into conflict and imploded catastrophically, and is now in the churchy equivalent of receivership. The mostly Korean young adults who now make up the bulk my still-tiny congregation tended to side with the pastor who has now left, and have a tense relationship with those who remain.

And yet...and yet...we were still to have joint service together.

As I worked to prepare for the service with the retired Korean pastor who is now overseeing the remains of our sister congregation, it became evident that the buffet was going to be a bit leaner this year. No Korean choir. No guest musicians. Even the brilliant pianist who incongruously leads music for the remnant of their congregation required some gentle suasion to participate. From our side, no young adult choir. No bell-choir. No dancing Asian-Santa-girls. Just a small pageant skit. I was ready for this.

What I wasn't ready for was not delivering a Christmas message. While we met to plan, it became clear that for a variety of reasons, the retired Korean pastor expected to deliver the message this Christmas Eve. Not jointly. Not in dialogue. Just him.

I struggled mightily with this. This year has been a hugely hard one for the church. If things don't start trending differently, this could be my last Christmas in this ministry. It's also the service to which my extended family comes every year. And I'm not going to be able to take this opportunity to lead worship? My pride snarled and yanked at the chain.

But as my irritation increased, so too did my irritation with my irritation. It was Christmas Eve, dagnabbit. What possible right did I have to be proprietary or egocentric? It seemed...well...a bit self-absorbed. A bit stunted. A bit small.

I took a spiritual deep breath, and got myself over it.

The service itself was smaller, but both lovely and a bit chaotic, as always. The music was beautiful. The kids in the pageant were endearingly cute. And the message was low key, thoughtful, and on the good side of fine.