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By: By Bob Pondillo
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The first Christians to settle in this country wanted to ban the celebration of Christmas. They were Puritans, of course, looking to "purify" Christianity from any corrupting influences, especially from the Church of England. They correctly reasoned, Dec. 25th is actually the date of a Pagan feast to the Roman Sun God Mithras - a celebration of the gradual return of spring following the winter solstice - and bore no connection at all to the so-called birth date of Jesus. Next the Puritans realized that decorating trees and burning logs were but updated versions of the practices of the ancient Druids - so Christmas trees and Yule logs were out as far as the Puritans were concerned. Greenery, too, was a Pagan symbol for the persistence of life in the face of winter's death, which meant there would be no hanging of wreaths or mistletoe either. In fact, when the Puritans held theocratic sway in mid-17th century Massachusetts, the celebration of Christmas was legally banned! You'd be fined if you were caught celebrating it!
So, when rabidly conservative Christians of today complain that secularists and liberals are trying to get rid of Christmas, the great irony is that the only people in this country who ever managed to successfully ban Christmas were rabidly conservative Christians - our Puritan ancestors of nearly four centuries ago. The compound irony is that those Puritans were absolutely right in their reasons for banning Christmas. Most of the celebrations and decorations associated with it (to this day) had little if any bearing upon the alleged birth of Jesus, and actually predate the Christian era by hundreds even thousands of years. The Puritans...Fox News...Jerry Falwell...Pat Robertson, and the extreme Christian right seem to miss the bigger picture, the true universality of this Holiday Season.
The bigger picture is that the festivities and celebrations of this wonderful season cannot be contained in any singular religious tradition. In fact, they can't be contained at all because they speak to certain spiritual yearnings of connectedness and identification that all of us experience in our hearts. And I think the four major themes of the holiday season - what our Protestant and Catholic friends call Advent - clearly transcend the Christian faith, and go to the realm of the Universal. The four themes are: Joy, Hope, Peace, and Love.
The love (or agape) to which I refer is a deep sense of identification with, and a connection to life that surges all around us and of which we are all a part. What this kind of love means is that your life is also a part of other lives, and what happens to these lives also happen to you. That's what I mean by a sense of identification and connection. One need not be a part of the Christian faith (or any faith) tradition to appreciate its seasonal message -- that we, too, in our lives are to be incarnations of love in the deepest and truest sense of the term.
As I'm sure you know, the very term "holiday" is really a contracted form of the words Holy Day. Therefore, to wish someone "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" is hardly a denigration of Christmas no matter what Bill O'Riley says. It's instead a recognition that no one observance, and no single faith tradition, can contain the many expressions of joy, hope, peace, and love that this season evokes.
Dec. 25th is a Holiday and a Holy day for all persons of faith -- and I mean "persons of faith" in the largest, most inclusive sense; faith that the Blessings of Life are stronger than even death; faith that our lives can be renewed even as the earth renews itself; faith that persons of good will who walk in a myriad of religious and spiritual traditions can also walk on the common ground of human decency, community, tolerance and kindness.
So, my hope is that you will celebrate the season in ways that are meaningful to you, and speak to it in whatever ways that best convey the stirrings of your heart.
Here's to Joy, Hope, Love...and the Peace of a happy heart, for this season and throughout the coming year.
Happy Holidays!
Bob Pondillo
Sayre Lane
Murfreesboro
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