Opinion/Editorial

CHRISTMAS MISSION

Christmas is fast coming upon us, as this issue goes to publication. In the Midwest, there’s no snow, just a blowing cold wind with varying cold temperatures. The very complex nature of the social fabric holding what we call civilization altogether has been “readjusted” because of our reaction to the effects of the virus. What will distancing mean over the long run, even when distancing is no longer required? What will the economic changes mean for so many?

The nation’s money system has been bent and torn asunder for so many, so many who have almost no voice to even cry out their pain. The voices heard and read today are those of the very monied few, the ‘elected’ and ‘anointed’ and ‘appointed’ few. We watch. We listen. We react using tiny little comments on huge social media Internet sites like Facebook, but our voices are those of mice responding to a distant nuclear attack.

This Christmas is truly all about Charles Dickens and his writing of A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and with us today in many iterations. Most Scrooges we have any real knowledge of are in Washington D.C. They will likely not be visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future. It was a wonderful 1843 fable, and it was written in a time that is similar to our own, but so different in communications. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of few and, as we all have come to know through history and our own experience, wealth in the hands of a few is many times a recipe for brutal treatment of others around. It’s a finished meal baked, but not to be eaten. Not to be eaten, that is, by the poor, the homeless, those who’ve lost liberty, status, or true visible existence in our society. We should all be reflecting on what we have, and whom we have in our lives today.

Those of us lucky enough to have homes, places heated against the pressing force of low degree winds, should be giving thanks to God for being among the select of the world. But, in staring into that crackling oak wood fire in the study on this day, while listening to Christmas stuff come out of television speakers nearby, we should think about those who are the unfortunates not so blessed. Only by first thinking together can we really begin to act together.

There is no need for anyone to be hungry anymore in our society. Anyone. There is no need in our society for anyone to not have protection from the elements. Anyone. There is no need for anyone not to have quality medical care. Anyone. We have been so gifted by God that our combined immense wealth (mostly denied) should pay for all of that with plenty left over. But we must think about distribution, even as we consider reducing the wealth of the few, and in reducing the wealth of the few by doing so while quoting about the eye of the needle and the camel.  Scientists came up with vaccines to fight the virus but what about distribution there? How do we reach one another when most of the societal fabric straining to survive these days is structured to keep us apart, and quite literally being taught to listen to media stars who are flagrantly lying?

We were being ‘socially distanced’ long before the pandemic six-foot rule and masking came along. Cell phones distance us. Television distances us. Radio distances us.  The Internet and Internet communications distance us. Those things also direct us. We have been getting lonelier and lonelier every day of every month of every year while we are claiming that that condition is either non-existent or quite okay. It’s not. The Christmas spirit is not about being alone. Maybe it is only our Christian beliefs that can overcome the horror of what it might be like in the future to simply have no physical contact with one another at all. Think by the side of that construct of a fire existing only in your mind, which I’m trying to create on this cold windy day outside.

Creating it as barely heated ‘coals’ in your mind.  Blow on those coals, resurrect a real fire from them, and then act. What do we do to act? The answer to that question is in all of our problems.  Read the New Testament if you really want some easy to read but oh so hard to follow answers. Think first, then act.  Merry Christmas…this year with a mission.