Happy Christmas

Love.

Read no further if you are looking for a thought to meditate on today, for that is the truest spirit of the day. This truth dawned upon me as our last minute and sometimes bashful exchange of gifts (or gift IOUs) really started to sink in.

Those numerous moments when I realized how deeply thoughtful a small gift can be—out of the 130M or so books in the world, the one that is the perfectly captures my interest, and also shows your support and interest in a hair-brained movie idea that we've batted around for a couple years now... The prototype (sketch model?) of the perfect way to capture the business-idea-of-the-day that really needs to be drawn in order to be understood, captured, or shared—these moments cemented in my mind the real reason that we wander midtown at rush hour, in a eerily sweltering downpour, two days before Christmas, to hunt down that certain something that we know will bring a smile to the

ones

we

love.


Perhaps owing to some insecurity about the increasingly multicultural and, of course, commercial nature of this time of year, I have noticed many comments over the past month promoting (insisting on?) the recognition of the "Reason for the Season," usually meaning in some direct or indirect way: Jesus. This is, at one time, correct and incorrect.

Stick with me through the more negative comments, and I'll do my best to reward your patience...

Yes, tradition dictates that this day marks His birth, the point in time he entered human history as a tiny child, too poor for adequate housing or medical care, and utterly powerless to proclaim the mystery of His own incarnation to the crowd of humans and cattle in attendance.

Wonderful as the nativity is, it almost certainly did not happen on December 25 (no one would embark on a long journey in winter, as Joseph and Mary and the rest of the empire did for the census. A spring date is much more likely...). Most likely the choice of date comes out of a desire to market Christianity in a way that was more inclusive, a way that meshed with the folk religions of the masses.

But that is not what I celebrate. The memorialization of divine history shrouds deep and mysterious truths in trite trivializations and the huge pile of trash that is our expired collective efforts at marketing Christmas™ to the consumer.

Among other well intentions, the "Reason..." messaging attempts to counterbalance these consumer oriented appropriations with something a little more meaningful. Something, perhaps, that undoes the sense of damage or loss felt by the insistent erosion of the original brand. Marketing vs. marketing.

I can't accept this battle for the hearts and minds of the mob—Jesus has never fit well into the kind of broadcast culture that holiday traditions are supposed to reinforce. Jesus, the small, poor, Nazarene (middle eastern) infant crying in the night is difficult to fully comprehend as "th' incarnate deity" of Wesley's hymn without accepting both infant and deity as a deeply personal revelation. This is the core truth at the very heart of the Christian message:

The God who comes near.

There we find the other side of of the coin. By rejecting the "better not pout, better not cry" model of Christmas, we make room in our hearts for the Newborn King, who even though we do nothing to make ourselves worthy of it, comes near.

We too can strive to be near, to the child in the neighbor, and to the neighbors that he taught us to love. As impossible as it may seem, we can choose to forgive those who have rightly earned our scorn. We can choose to care for those who are not our problem per se, but who nonetheless need someone to care. We can choose to pursue peace through our honesty, patience, and self sacrifice.

We can choose love.

And when we tear back the paper that decorates the precious gift of our love for one another, we will feel that sense of comfort and joy that can only come from the reason for the season.

Love.