Myths and Legends

Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives' tales. 1 Timothy 4:7 (NRSV)

Today I want to write about the many and varied myths and legends associated with the many and varied symbols and songs of Christmas. This will in no way be exhaustive but it seems opportune given that Facebook and my inbox are filling with these myths and legends.

The Twelve Days of Christmas This song is about the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Traditionally a time of celebrations and gift giving and part of the fun was a Twelfth Night celebration where "memory-and-forfeits" games were played/sung. In these games the leader recited a verse, each of the players repeated the verse, and the leader added another verse, and so on until one of the players made a mistake, with the player who erred having to pay a penalty, such as an offering up a kiss or a sweet. The myth is that the items in the song (partridge, turtle doves, etc) are symbolic of various Christian doctrines (partridge=Jesus, two turtle doves= the Old and New Testament, etc) and that it was sung by Catholics in England when the practice of their faith was outlawed as a way of teaching their doctrine.

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp

Legend of the Candy Cane This holiday treat is a relatively recent addition to the world. In early Christmas cards sugar candy was represented as white sticks until early in the 20^th century when the now traditional upside down “J” shape with red and white strips began appearing. Candy sticks with color strips are known in the 1840s. The myths that the candy cane developed as a way for Christians to identify one another or as a symbol of the scourging Jesus received are again fabrications where a secular item is infused with religious meaning that was not the original intent of the item.

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/candycane.asp

I could go on from the Christmas tree to Santa Claus to the number and gender of the wise visitors to Christmas lights to Christmas being the actual date of Christ’s birth. As with almost any Christian holiday (perhaps any faith’s holidays) the symbols and traditions are often times adopted or adapted from those of the indigenous cultures. When trying to make your belief system understandable to someone outside your traditions what better way than to adapt them to local items and events?

So should we just ignore all our traditions and symbols of Christmas? No. I think that knowing what the origins of a myth or legend are is important as is the truth behind the adaptation or adoption. Then you can make an informed decision about what you will include in your own festivities and how you will share the meaning and significance of the symbols and legends you choose to pass along.

I think finding “Christian” meanings in myths and legends is one way of keeping the faith alive but we should never divorce the real roots from the thing itself. So I talk about the Christmas tree representing for me eternal life and the lights as symbols of the light of Christ but also mention that it started out as a religious symbol for indigenous peoples who had no knowledge or intent to communicate what I find in it today. I don’t need my faith to be the only reason for a symbol or a celebration, it doesn’t have to supplant the meaning it had with another and be deemed superior. When we try to cover over or hide the original we are saying that ours is better and that isn’t the point. The point is to let things speak and to find meaning within them for yourself and your faith but not to deride or belittle or even replace the faith, tradition or people that gave you the song, symbol or whatever.

In the early days of some of the American colonies Christmas was banned as a holiday as were all its symbols. It took well into the 1800s before Christmas began to be adopted as a holiday thanks in part to the immigrants who came from countries where their Christmas traditions were never banned. Think about what we almost lost if that ban held up over time. Sure most of what we associate with Christmas has its roots in other cultures and indigenous faiths but that doesn’t mean we can’t find significance and meaning in it for our faith and lives. So grab a cup of nog (not Christian), belt out the “Twelve Days of Christmas” while sitting in front of your Yule log (again not Christian) and your Christmas tree and find within it all meaning for your life and faith.

God, thank you for all faiths and cultures and the celebrations and traditions that belong to them. Thank you for giving me a mind to think and a heart to feel. Thank you for the meaning I can find in them and in the entire world. Thank you for giving me a faith that can be seen and known and felt in so many ways. Keep my imagination strong, my faith nimble and help me to never let the meaning I find in something be understood as the only meaning it can have. Amen.

Christmas Cookies

Asher will become famous for rich foods, candies and sweets fit for kings.

 - Genesis 49:20 (The Message)

We have a tradition in my family, one that dates at least to my mom’s mom. This tradition is that everyone in the family has to have a favorite Christmas cookie and they get that cookie each year. Now this is a wonderful tradition and always is received with joy. But, and you know there would be a but; it can be a bit overwhelming once you get your children’s significant others and your grandkids included in the list.  It means a wide variety of cookies but it also means making a wide variety of cookies. And of course as more and more folks are added to the list the choice of cookies becomes more difficult. We have modified our tradition to the point where someone can have a favorite that has already been claimed by someone else. It makes it easier on the cookie bakers and on the selection process.

When I was doing my “Foods of Faiths” meals based on the primary holiday of each faith there was a common thread that ran through them all, a sweet treat. It would seem that almost every culture and faith has a sweet tooth and that at times of joyous celebration that tooth is fed. One reason that sweet treats are so much a part of these special times is that sweeteners (sugar, honey, molasses, etc) are not easy to procure or produce. They are available for limited times or it takes a lot of effort to produce them. So these sweet ingredients are prized and used sparingly except at times of celebration.

Today in the 21^st century western world at least sugar and other sweet ingredients are easy to come by, relatively cheap and most of us have sweet treats as part of our every day (or maybe limited to weekly) diets. Sweets are no big deal to us. Cookies and candies and pies and cakes are available at every store, gas station, newsstand, restaurant, hardware store and just about everywhere else. They just aren’t that special anymore; the common place-ness of them has lessened their specialness but so as the quality of a lot of them. Mass produced sweets always seem lacking to me. Now some treats in some bakeries and restaurants are almost to die for in their quality and taste but that bag of cookies or that freezer pie just seems to be missing something.

So I like our Christmas tradition. We produce quality, handmade treats that are special because they are handmade and because they are favorites, not every day treats. At Christmas we use only the best – real butter, special flour, top of line chocolate, fresh and special ingredients all the way around. We make small batches – enough but not too much. And we take the time to decorate them well, make them look picture perfect, and have their presentation be special. They are truly treats for one and all.

So we begin the baking this weekend. We start with gingerbread, move on to sugar cookies, do the spritz, make what we call wagon wheels but what the rest of the world calls chocolate crinkles, then comes the fudge with and without nuts, then peanut butter cookies both with and without the chocolate kiss, snicker doodles make an appearance, gingersnaps have to be done, snowballs rolled out (my dad’s favorite which we will make in his memory this year), and the Check Mix baked (we salt lovers need a special fix too!). We spread this over several days and we end our special treats with fresh cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Makes my mouth water just typing this!

I hope you have a tradition that is exceptional. One that makes everyone feel that they are special. I hope that whether or not you have a large group or if it is even just yourself you keep that tradition alive. Everyone needs some touch stone, some special ritual, and some tradition that sparks memories, brings meaning, and helps make you feel this is a special time. If you don’t have some tradition now is as good a time as any to start one. Don’t be afraid to try something and see if it fits. We have gone through several traditions in my family. Some of them stuck and some of them lasted for a time and some didn’t make the must do status of Christmas cookies but all of them helped to bring meaning and significance to our celebrations.

Dear God, thank you for traditions, rituals and other things that make celebrations and holidays special. May all people everywhere have some special moment and treat this year. Be with those who have lost their traditions or who have never had them. May every one of your children feel special this year. Amen.

American & Christian

Do not say, "Why were the former days better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. – Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NRSV) Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. – Isaiah 43:18 (NRSV)

Ok, I have held off now for months but I can do so no longer, I have to Muse about “The Donald.” His latest “position” on Muslims in the United States has pushed me over the edge. On the Huffington Post website his campaign press release read: "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” Add to this his call for a data base on all Muslims and a shutting down of all Mosques and I am fed up with his Islamaphobia and his lack of compassion, understanding and commitment to Christian and American values.

What is going on? How can so many people be supporting this idiot? Time and time and time again through US history we have tried to ban, round up, subjugate and “protect our citizens and our way of life” to have these efforts backfire or be condemned in light of the values we profess. Slavery, Chinese immigration laws of the 1880s, Japanese internment, etc are all failures of just the kind of thing Donald Trump and his supporters are advocating. All have been proven to be worthless and all are condemned as anti-Christian and anti-American because they violate our basic understanding of our country, our values, and our humanity.

I can only understand these extreme reactions if it is placed within the realm of fear and a flawed desire to somehow reclaim a nostalgic past where all was wonderful. That past never existed. Because of who we are there has never been a time when we could keep others out in order to protect ourselves because we are all others here. One of the reasons people began to migrate to this land in the 1600s was because of religious intolerance in their homelands. A founding principle of this country is that people should be free to practice their religion and that being a citizen of this country does not require you to profess any religious creed or doctrine that you don’t want to.

How can people support excluding others based on religion? It is fundamentally against everything that is truly American not be mention Christian. We are told by Jesus to love one another. We are told by Paul that there are neither Gentiles nor Jews. We are told by our founding documents that all people are created equal. This may be the ideal and it may never have been fully realized but these are our basic understandings and core values. When you talk about keeping a group of people out or about gathering them into ghettos or making them register or monitoring an entire faith group -does this sound familiar like maybe Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or Stalinist Russia or …? – you have given up what it means to be an American and a Christian.

Fear is easy to manipulate. Fear is easy to build upon. Fear is a strong emotion that kicks in all our reptilian instincts. Fear is a motivator for doing things you would never normally do. And fear is something manipulative people have drawn on to get groups to do things they would consider evil, abhorrent and beyond anything they would normally tolerate. I don’t think Donald Trump is smart enough to be deliberately manipulating the supports he has. I think he is just a scared, fearful and mean man who cares nothing for others and isn’t able to look at what he says and believes in a critical way. He is so narrow in his thinking, so limited in his compassion, so trapped in his billionaire fantasy land, and so out of touch with the world that he can only spout off ridiculous ideas that have no basis in reality and that would in fact do more harm than good.

I am proud of the fact that these United States have always tried to live by the words of the poem “New Colossus” on a plague on the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We may have often times failed in our living out this dream, this call, this desire but it has been our beacon to the world and it helps to define who we are, what we believe and what we want our nation to be and set a standard for how we behave.

I don’t want to give Mr. Trump any more time or attention. I think his popularity is being driven by the media obsession with him and his ludicrous statements and preposterous positions. He makes good theater but he’s had his time in the spot light and we need to set this show aside. After all, only 35% of Republicans support him and only 23% of the US population is Republican. His views are not the views of a solid majority of Americans (according to the Wallstreet Journal), thank God!

Dear God, help me to be more tolerant of those I deem to be ignorant, mean, and narrow minded. Help me to live out my convictions and my faith. I pray for those been targeted and vilified. Help my nation to be the ideal we profess, a place that welcomes all. Amen.

Idols

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me…You shall not murder. - Exodus 20:2-3 & 13 (NRSV)

Just another day and just another mass shooting in the land of the free and home of the brave. There have been more mass shooting in the good old US of A this year then there have been days of the year. A mass shooting is when four or more people are shot in an event, or related series of events, likely without a cooling off period. Here is a graph from the Oregonian today that tells a lot about this number (each purple hash is a mass shooting):

I think we have been talking about the problem of guns all wrong. I think that what we have in this country with a minority of the population is a fanatical worship of an idol. By most sources and estimates only 1/3 of the US population owns a gun and gun ownership is declining. Yet most sources will tell you that right now in the US there are anywhere from 270-310 million privately owned guns – that’s nearly one gun for every man, woman, and child in the US. So those that own guns on average own several. So I think we might have a devotion to an idol and not a commitment to a right to own and bear arms.

Let me say that a large number of gun owners are people who handle them safely, have a reason to own them and don’t participate in what I am saying is idol worship. I cannot tell you numbers because they aren’t easy to find but I know many people who do own guns but don’t worship them or the right to own them.

That being said there are still a small but fanatical group out there that sees their guns as holy and their right to own them as devotion to their god. How else can you explain their unflinching claim that more guns would keep these mass shootings at bay? That isn’t logic or even defense of a right, it is religious fanaticism. “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hand.” Who says something like that? Only a devote worshiper. I think that we are missing the point if we approach gun control from a socially responsible or logical or common sense perspective.

We have to see that the NRA and its devotees are a form of idol worship, they have placed their guns and their right to own them on a pedestal and have fervently dedicated their lives and resources to keeping the object of their devotion free and accessible so they can carry it with them wherever they go and have it near at all times. Regardless of how senseless or illogical or even criminal it may be these gun worshipers will risk everything for their god; even when their devotion means the very real possibility that they or others will freely violate of their other god’s commandments.

The opposition to gun control isn’t about the right to own and bear arms; it’s about a fanatical devotion to an idol.

Dear God, help us to worship you and you alone. Be with the victims of gun violence. Be with those who feel that they must use guns for violent purposes. Be with us all as we try to find a way forward that allows for freedom and also protects us. Amen.