The Christmas Zombie

The family gathered on Christmas Eve. Those in their 30s talked of vampires and zombies — the latest craze. No one mentioned the birth in Bethlehem.

The conversation turned to encounters with spiders, ants and snakes. No one mentioned Jesus of Nazareth.

I was quiet, numbed by the banter, the stories and the weight of my years. With the Christmas tree glittering in the next room and the fire crackling in the fireplace, I too did not think of the child in the manger.

So we passed the evening disconnected from Christmas and its meaning. As I pulled the covers up around me after everyone had gone home, a restless unease settled on me. The discomfort was beyond Christmas and banter about creepy insects and corpses that stalk the streets. It was much bigger — about being, not about worrying or thinking.

Finally, I concluded I was much too tired to deal with the enormity. I surrendered to a place beyond words, and there, in the silence of the void, I sighed and fell asleep.

It was only on this morning of Christmas Day that I began to connect the frivolity and seeming meaninglessness of the night before with Jesus and his teachings. Zombies and vampire are about transformation, even resurrection, gone horribly wrong. The world of these creatures is one without hope. Are the myths, which are so much in vogue, a warning? Are they a wake-up call, just as the message of Jesus was? Can we be led to love by zombies, vampires as well as by Jesus' teachings?

Are these stories, whether horrible or hopeful, ways of making us aware before it is too late?

The Christian mythology, fabricated years after Jesus’ death, also sought to direct and, yes, strike fear in our hearts. Vampires and zombies emerged from societies aware of, even steeped in what Jesus taught and what others mythologized about his life.

It seems odd yet worthwhile to ask: Was Jesus a kind of zombie with a difference when he reappeared after death?

Finally, I asked myself on this Christmas morning before we open the gifts, who would we be without this searingly honest itinerant teacher who spread his truth two thousand years ago?

Who would I be?

And you?

How is the world different today because of this birth in the manger? How is this very moment different because of Jesus?

Who is Jesus to us? Does he, like all others we encounter, become part of us, and how has that inward spirit changed us?

Indeed, Quakers, of whom I am one, believe in such an “indwelling spirit,” the Christ within. Would we hold such a belief, would we experience it, without that birth in Bethlehem so long ago?

Your Gift

Yesterday, I wished a young friend Merry Christmas, and then surprised myself by writing, “YOU are a gift.”

I hope she didn’t think me presumptuous. The feeling just came over me, and it wasn’t just about her.

We all are gifts.

Imagine if instead of opening presents during this madcap season, we simply opened ourselves to each other—as gifts. As precious, fleeting, unique gifts.

If we received each other as gifts, we'd see more clearly what we are giving and receiving.

What gifts are we to our families, friends, colleagues and communities — to the world? What gifts are they all to us?

So Merry Christmas, friend.

You are a gift.

That's your gift.

Taming the holiday beast

As you confront the frenzied holiday shopping homestretch, here's helpful advice from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Squinting

I spent much of Saturday afternoon drawing our ceilings and walls.

No, not drawing on, but drawing.

I’m in a drawing class and this week’s assignment is to use color pencils to draw a corner of a room.

To get the contrasts right, I also spent much of the afternoon squinting at the ceiling and walls. It’s a common artist’s technique. The broad outlines, contrasts and intensities of the scene become more apparent by squinting.

Squinting prevents the artist from becoming lost in and confused by details. (Try squinting at my drawing posted here.)

So it was that evening, as eleven of us sat down for our Passover Seder, (my wife is Jewish; I am a Quaker), I found myself “squinting” at the Passover story about tyranny, oppression and freedom.

And then there was God’s retribution on the Egyptians. “Why,” someone asked, “would a just God punish even innocent Egyptians?” (Death to the first born, plagues, frogs, hailstorms, locust, turning the Nile to blood etc.)

“It’s part of the mystery,” someone else said, rather lamely I felt.

Time to squint, I thought. Squint at the story, squint at the ritual, squint at history, squint at religion, squint at humanity.

What do you see? A God cast in a role that is all too human. The need for tradition, for an enduring, powerful story even if it no longer quite fits our needs for peace, forgiveness and reconciliation

Squint to see the celebration of freedom. Squint at the symbolic foods, the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs etc.

And when Christmas rolls around, squint at the commercialism, squint at the Wise Men and the virgin birth. Squint to find meaning, not in the details, shaped and reshaped by time, but in the broad sweep of belief and human need.

In these times, if we are to understand religion, we must squint, or we will be forced to wink — or be struck blind.

Joined by neighborly early birds

In the pre-dawn hours on Christmas Day, full from feasting on Christmas Eve, I set out to walk off my indulgences. My goal was three miles.

The damp, dim streets usually have no traffic at this hour, but here on Christmas morn, I found a trickle of cars, neighbors embarking, no doubt, for distant families.

My own destination was the Wilson High School track and 10 laps around it. Those coupled with my walk to and from the house would earn me my three miles.

In the darkness I had the track to myself, or so it seemed. To pass the time, I had my iPod plugged into my ears.

Two recorded professors lectured me in tandem about St. Francis, all courtesy of “The Teaching Company.” As I paced off the laps, I was feeling mildly smug and righteous about my choice of topic for the dawn of Christmas Day.

I was well into a lecture about the saint from Assisi when the seagulls joined me, wheeling, soaring and squawking above.

Yes, the loving affinity of St. Francis and his “sister birds” did occur to me. But more than that, Hillsdale and its feathered inhabitants were giving me their own unexpected Christmas gift.

As I rounded the eastern end of the track, a raucous cawing drew my attention to the chestnut next to the grandstand. One of Hillsdale’s clans of crows fussed and bickered over some pressing matter.

The morning lightened, the seagulls settled on the field, grubbing for their communal breakfast. The crows, though restless, seemed to have found peace.

Anyone who spends time in the Hillsdale Town Center knows these birds well. If you are like me, you take them for granted. They are, at best, curiosities: the crows pecking at some small morsel in the road; the gulls hanging out at Wilson, unacknowledged but deserving mascots.

But as Christmas dawned, for the first time in my years here, I viewed the gulls and crows as neighbors, companions really, on my trek around the track.

Rewind to a manger

Now obsolete audio and video tape technology has given the language a transforming one-word metaphor: Rewind.

On this Christmas Day, I'd like a spiritual, historical rewinding.

Rewind the tape 2000 years.

Rewind Christianity, past the wars, past the Middle East, past Northern Ireland. Go past preachers, pastors and popes. Past saints, bishops and cardinals.

Past schisms, sects and denominations.

Past works, good and bad. Past charity. Past devotion. Past hypocrisy. Past hatred.

Past dogma and ritual, sin and salvation.

Roll on past Salem and witch burnings, Indulgences and The Inquisition. Rewind by Meister Eckhart and Saint Francis, past the Crusades, past martyrs, past Paul and Peter, and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and Thomas.

Go past The Resurrection and The Crucifixion, The Stations of The Cross and the Last Supper.

Leave behind the miracles and metaphors, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Roll past the shepherds, the Wise Men and the guiding star.

Roll past them all.

Stop.

Stop at the manger in Bethlehem.

Pause on a frozen frame.

Pause and be still.

Wait and prepare to witness.

Press "play."

Watch —watch closely— what happens.