In a Mideast manger a baby’s silence is so intense
as to shimmer a star and spur celestial-gazing Magi
into loading up their camels and tripping for two years
toward the promise of a great reorientation.
Two millennia later I’m standing in Best-Buy
wearing a mask, listening to the Claymation version
of We Three Kings while reading a news-banner scrolling
beneath the swelling busts of two clever anchors questioning
vaccines and Dominion machines and claiming
their capital “I” individual rights and freedom
to ignore responsible citizenship.
Now I hear the puckish voice of Eartha Kitt singing,
Santa Baby. But none of us LED-eyed shoppers recall
she was the consequence of a white plantation owner’s son
raping her black mother; that she was abandoned, used;
that she found her way, spoke out against the Vietnam war,
championed the rights of gay people and for all that
was black-listed by the CIA and couldn’t find work
in her own country.
And now Burl Ives is singing, Holly Jolly Christmas.
In line is a young mom helplessly trying to corral
her pre-schooler and my mind turns to that toddler
taking his first exiled steps in Egypt, already wandering
towards his own black-listed death because he got real cranky
with haters and oppressors and got all obedient and submissive
out of a massive love for this: our majestically frayed global ghetto,
and oddly, I have this sudden pity, which I know isn’t love,
but it’s kind of tinged with it, for those two anchors that live
beneath the shit they say; but this is no elevated moral achievement
on my end, more like some benign retention of Sunday school,
but maybe I should trust it because it’s not very much like me.
So I do.
Of course this is where the Vienna Boys’ Choir should come on
singing, Joy to the World, but instead it’s The Jackson Five
and little Michael winding up, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.
Now the clerk with blue mask and visor and polite eyes
is calling me from my prescribed distance. I step off the red X,
fish out my wallet, tap, make my eyes smile, polite-like.
Exiting the store I see the young mom, now mask-less and beaming
at her preschooler who is pirouetting in the half-empty parking lot,
frilly-red Christmas dress spinning out — Joy to the World!
This is me, Grow Mercy, thanking you for reading and wishing you, in the midst of much complexity, greater joy!
May Christmas peace drift up as high as your windows,
and blessings rain down all through your New Year!
….and Christmas peace and blessings to you and all your galaxy-wide family.
Ah, thank you Pat!
Thank you for sharing your words. They bring beauty and inspire me.
Sending intentionally merry and sincere wishes for a hopeful new year to you and your loved ones.
Thank you Kellie! Wishing you beauty and inspiration.
This was wonderful Stephen! So apt at phrasing the way things are and at the same time, the work of He-Who-Came-To Reorient-Us-All’s burrowing into your less than conscious reactions to those anchors and the world at large. A blessed Christmas to you.
Thank you Ann! Beautifully encapsulated. Merry Christmas!
what a lovely meditation on the warm fuzzies and capitalist recoils of the dissonance that are Christmas tunes – hopeful that, nevertheless, we can choose to pirouette 🙂
Thank you Jo! I love how you put that.
Thank you so much for capturing the contradictions and paradoxes of our Christmas this year. And you left me hopeful at the end! Some days hope is a rare treasure. May you have a wonderful Christmas celebration with whoever you’re allowed to welcome into your home! Next year we’ll have Christmas hugs!
Thank you so much Edna! That means a lot. Wishing you a beautiful Christmas.
… benign Sunday School retentions…. who knew how much we would need them!
Right hey? Thanks Sam.
I love these insightful observations of juxtaposed seasonal offerings from the news anchors, to the carol interpretations to a bit of Eartha Kitt’s biography which isn’t witnessed in her ‘puckish’ interpretation of ‘Santa Baby’. You bring to light some of my confusion and gentle consternation with seasonal ‘delights’.
Thank-you for these evocative observations and for expressing them with palatable ‘season’ing.
Thank you for your kind words Kirk! Thanks for adding your own seasoning.