A Christmas Window on the World

December 13, 1964
Rochester

A Christmas Window on the World

Christmas festivities are profound but elusive mixtures of the sacred and the profane. Aldous Huxley grasped the puzzling cultural contradiction in his novel, THE GENIUS AND THE GODDESS, when one character says to another, “Drive carefully ... this is a Christian country and it’s the Savior’s birthday. Practically everyone you see will be drunk.”

Christian celebrations are mysterious compounds of self-satisfaction and self-transcendence. We find great ego-comfort not only in “what we are going to get for Christmas,” but also in being showered with gratitude and attention for the lavish presents we give. But moments of sensitivity occur when we are freed of the shackles of self-centered existence and wistfully we turn our eyes upward to that highest star we have never really followed wholeheartedly. In such moments of self-forgetfulness, we perceive that Christmas is a rare time when the littleness and greatness of life’s possibilities are encapsulated in a season.

I’m not concerned today with the age-old impulses and deep-rooted human traditions which stirred people from pre-historic times and in all places to celebrate mid-Winter and mark the restoration of days of lengthening light. Even as we look out on a winter world from the sanctuary of our homes, let us consider Christmas as comprising windows on a world of human wishes and fulfillments. Consider with me, Christmas as a window on a world that is; Christmas as a window on a world that could be.

Christmas is a window on a world that never was. Like many other stores at this season, large department stores in Boston arranged fascinating windows where little figures moved in mechanical rhythm through a world of fantasy. Although in our city these Christmas fantasy windows are not part of the season this year, many Main Streets in American have little elves hopping about or lovely snow princesses charming the passers-by; or wise men or shepherds reverently approaching the Madonna and child. You have seen such show window productions of fantasy and have been delighted by them.

But such windows of charming fantasy portray a world that never was. The snow-covered cottages of the Middle Ages were cold. Living was not only difficult, but many times, brutalized by the raw hardships of existence. The elves, dwarfs and snow-princess reflect a world where people believed in witches, good fairies and supernatural guardian angels, who with a touch of the magic wand or a sound of heavenly music would transform cold, hunger, misery and darkness to warmth, well-being, happiness and light.

I was interested to read yesterday of an institution that attempts to establish and maintain a world that never was. An attorney separated from his wife brought suit against her to recover his children. She had taken the children and become part of a religious colony where husbands, wives and children all lived separately from one another. In defending the colony’s right to its peculiar ways, the defense attorney is reported to have pleaded to the court as follows: “Who is to say it is narrow because the children do not have to listen to the unspeakable Beatles or see the more undesirable features of the mass media today such as the more pornographic paperbacks in the newsstands.” The defense then told the court that the children at the center have never heard a radio, seen television or newspapers, or even played at a playground (see BOSTON GLOBE, 12/11/64).

Now the point is not to dispute the right to choose a way of life in a religious community where association is voluntary, no matter how odd the Utopian plan. But to attempt to isolate children from the growth experiences of their culture is to live in a world that never was. For however our culture may be measured on a moral scale, we must live in it. If it is vulgar, we may attempt to refine it. If it is less moral, we may try to make it more moral. But to separate oneself from the forces of human society is futile, for such efforts seek a world that never was and never will be.

But because our fantasy flights at Christmas are temporary, light-hearted and a restful change from the difficult rhythm of prosaic living, we need not fear to indulge in window watching and lend a responseful heart to charming make-believe. Albert Camus (THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS, p. 9) wrote “a man defines himself by his make belief as well as by sincere impulses.” In another essay, Camus extended another dimension to this thought when he wrote, “There are no more deserts. There are no more islands. Yet there is a need for them. In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion; in order to serve men better one has to old them at a distance for a time.” (THE MINOTAUR)

When we load the buffets in our homes with stuffed dates, oranges, apples, ribbon candy; when we shut out the problems of business or politics as we relax in the evergreen-scented sanctuary of home; when our major attention is confided to the number of our household, we are achieving for the moment a fortress of self-sufficiency, healthy indulgence and mutual love which cannot endure, but which for the few hours, gives us a grasp on comfort, contentment and cheer. As psychiatrist Erik Erikson commented, “If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.” (YOUNG MAN LUTHER, p. 75)

But the second Christmas window is the world that is. The real world encounters us at Christmas, too. [lightly crossed out: Our real world cannot wiggle away from the unembarrassed accusation of modern poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, in “CHRIST CLIMED DOWN.”] Our Christmas trees have lost their roots, we do put plastic babes in wallboard mangers; not only some of our relatives, but also we ourselves frequently behave in cornball fashion. In the world that is, Christmas has surface glitter. Too often we fail to probe beneath that surface to discover whether there are deeps or only shallows of meaning. [also lightly scribbled out: If Ferlinghetti’s lines offend, one should search himself to see if that hostility is born of guilt.

Christmas is a window on a world that is. Nine days ago, when all flights were canceled because of weather, I took the train in order to reach Boston for a week-end of meetings. As the train moved eastward, the severity of the ice store increased. In the Berkshires, the trees were so heavily laden with ice that the burdened boughs were struck by the train. The sound of impact of bough and train was like intermittent gunfire. One branch cracked the engineer’s window.

Upon arrival there was news of many highway deaths caused by icy roads; there had been single accidents involving hundreds of cars; there were the usual ghastly reports of death from faulty heating devices and fires caused by over-heated stoves. This is the world of Winter that is – a world of hardship, particularly for poor people. ]

People do respond to this world that is at Christmas. The coins ring in the street corner kettles where one can help hungry man and destitute families. The radioman receives thousands of pennies for the toy programs in the hospitals. We purchase Christmas seals where proceeds help persons who are ill; we purchase cards from our own UUSC and the proceeds are applied to a variety of projects whose common denominator is human need. Many persons have their private, and sometimes, substantial project where aid is channeled to persons.

But in the world that is, it is also true that the Christmas flush of giving pales. If the kettles were on the street for twelve months, there would be sharply diminishing returns. Individually our devotion lags after a while, even to good causes. Limited span of attention is not confined to children. Because this is the way of the world, Community Chests, United Funds, Social Welfare Agencies are established and maintained. If we were expected voluntarily to contribute weekly, or monthly, without a pledge campaign for a yearly commitment to the Community Chest, then the quota would be so short of fulfillment that few of the necessary agencies could begin to maintain effective service. When we raise the shade on the window of the world that is, such is the scene.

At this great season of song, worship and gifts, we hold high the ideal of peace and goodwill. We read the old gospel legends about rejoicing angels singing of peace on earth, good will to men. Yet we would be naive if we failed to perceive the world that is. Protestant theologian, Robert McAfee Brown, wrote, “It is easy to gush over ’the baby Jesus’ and what a sweet picture the stable scene makes on a Christmas card with cute little angels flying overhead. We must not forget that the baby whom everyone helps to adore will grow up to be the man everyone helps to crucify.” (THE BIBLE SPEAKS TO YOU)

In his autobiography, BORSTAL BOY, Brendan Behan, the late Irish playwright and poet who lived so boisterously and excessively, writes of an incident when he was jailed and beaten cruelly. As he was recovering, he was given some books. Even in the midst of pain and prison squalor, he was cheered-up by the prospect of being able to read. He observed, “It’s a queer world, God knows, but the best we have to be going on.”

Our Christmas window on the world that is should never be far apart from the window on the world that never was. Reality needs to be paired with fantasy. But our Christmas observatory would be unfinished if we failed to pay attention to the third window: Christmas is a window on the world that could be; a world where all little children are brought the gifts of opportunity in the world as well as the gift of love in the home. Christmas is a window on the world that could be when we are roused from our complacency. I don’t know the source of the following lines, but many of us might ponder them to our benefit:

“The Affluent Society is only too ready to be the Acquiescent Society. Large numbers of people are so pleased to discover that they never had it so good that they lack the imagination to envisage ways in which they might have it much better and the charity to realize that there are plenty of people in the world who continue to have it badly. All too many of those who are in a position to remind people of these responsibilities and obligations are content to be as profitably acquiescent as the rest.”

Now the Christian gospel legends place a particular framework around the world that could be – a setting wherein a Messiah is expected, astrological predictions are made of his coming, humble shepherds, overwhelmed with reverence and awe, bend at the cradle; rich and wise men arrive acknowledging allegiance and respect; finally, threats to the new-born king arise from an established and tyrannical order. In Vol III of his SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, Dr. Paul Tillich precisely comprehends the meaning of the legends when he notes, “the speeches and writings of all prophets and mystics and of all those who claim to have had a divine inspiration are couched in the language of the tradition from which they come, but are driven in the direction of the ultimate.” (p. 127) And again, “There is no pure Spiritual Presence where there is no humanity and justice.”

Thus, when Old Zechariah was rejoicing in his son, John, born to Elizabeth, he proclaimed,

(Luke 1, 76/79)
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High
for you will go before the lord to prepare his ways
To give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins
through the tender mercies of our God,
when the day shall dawn upon us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet in the way of peace.”

Those who were in darkness and shadowed by death needed what in our day we would name freedom, peace and a rightful share in the abundance of this old planet.

The magnificent words attributed to Mary are decidedly radical, or at very least announce striking goals for society,

(Luke 1 52/54)
“he has put down the mighty from their throne,
and exalted those of low degree;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away.”

Zechariah and Mary, the Shepherds and Angels were not singing of a world that was, but of a world that could be and should be.

In a documentary film, years ago, about WWI, the Christmas truce in the trenches was recalled. On Christmas day the firing stopped, soldiers met in no-man’s land, fraternized, sang carols, exchanged cigarettes and food. For a brief hour they were living a world that could be. For if such a world could never be they would not have shared their songs and smokes.

In the world that is, if I walk down the street and push people around, or break a window, or start a barroom scuffle, I will be arrested for disturbing the peace.

In the world that could be, when a rascal nation disturbs peace on earth, good will to men, that nation too will be restrained by an international police force for disturbing the peace of the world. Then people living in the world will hear the angels’ song. Psychologist G. Robert Mowrer pointed to a corresponding truth when he wrote, “the only form of love that is genuinely redemptive and therapeutic is one that is demanding and expectant.” (THE NEW GROUP THERAPY, p. 31). In the world that could be and should be, peace would be demanded and expected. When it is demanded and expected by a resolute parliament of nations, then the nations will know peace, and one day, good will.

So on this midway day of the 1964 Christmas season, my wish for you is that you look through the Christmas windows on a world that never was, for fantasy has its place; on a world that is, for to run from reality is to lose one’s life; on a world that could be, for without the star of hope to guide us in the dark, the season is robbed of meaning.

Chad Walsh wrote the poem, “Letter to a Young Poet,” (printed in KEY REPORTER). I share his concluding lines:

“Meanwhile there’s many kinds of dark.
Explore them now. Explore and write
And find or make a path in the night.
Bisect the darkness with the moment’s light.”