X-Holidays

A lot of people get upset with replacement words for Christmas. I think that’s interesting. I understand that there was a movement a few years back to secularize the Christmas season and so there is an understandable opposition to this movement, which takes place largely in marketing and advertising. In any case, I find it ironic that the replacement words are actually Christian words as well. Take X-mas for example. I remember a children’s book about a place where they celebrated “X-mas” by selling manger scenes with Xes in mangers and watching tv shows about Xes. I used to think that “X-mas” was just an extreme way of avoiding using the name“Christ.” It turns out “X” isn’t actually an “x.” I mean it isn’t an English “x.” It’s actually a Greek letter pronounced “chi” which happens to be the first letter in the Greek spelling of Christ. In fact in a lot of C. S. Lewis’s letters he uses the abbreviation X in words like Xian (Christian). Not that it’s okay just because C. S. Lewis did it. My point is just that this supposedly secularized abbreviation actually stems from Christian tradition.

People also don’t like the word Holiday. I understand that it is can be less satisfying to see your favorite department store proclaiming “Happy Holidays” than “Merry Christmas” but think about this for a minute. Even when unbelievers say“Merry Christmas” they are usually celebrating Santa Claus and warm fuzzy feelings of goodwill which are inspired by colorful blinking lights rather than the good news signaled by the arrival of Immanuel. Do we really want to force people to celebrate pine trees, shopping and happy music?

That aside, I still don’t mind the phrase “Happy Holidays” because it still points back to Christian tradition. The closest thing to a homonym (there is probably a better word, for “sounds like…” but I don’t know it) for holidays is holy days. I’m fairly certain (I’m not connected to the internet to verify this) that this is because of the Gregorian calendar in which the days of the year were tied to the activities of the church. Monasteries had particular daily schedules as well. There were specific Psalms that would be read on a certain day at a certain time. The times of the day and the seasons of the year were tied to particular prayers, songs and readings to mark the day.

In my last post I talked about the way that music connects us to memories. The changing of seasons help to connect us to memories. Imagine living in a city with no seasons. Don't say Phoenix. We don't have snow, but we still have seasons. Seasons keep us from living purely linear lives. Even while we move forward, we remain in cycles. Think about if temperature was linear. Either it would never change, it would always be getting hotter or it would always be getting colder. Why is it that time is the only thing that never goes backwards? As time is always increasing, everything else loops around and rises and falls.

The calendar keeps us connected to other points in time. Think about life as a graph with a standard x-y axis with time as the x-axis and some thing else in the y-axis like the date. The date is always changing, but your y coordinate will sometimes be the same. So in one dimension, you go back and forth, in another dimension you are never in the same place twice. Now think of life as thousands of different factors, each one a dimension (of course it's impossible to picture, but you can understand the idea) thousands of dimensions are always changing, back and forth, up and down: weight, location, date, friends, emotions. Holy days are an interesting time in that sense because so many dimensions line up. We have traditions, which means that we like to go to the same places, eat the same food, sing the same songs, we spend time with the same people, decorate our house the same way, read the same books and think the same thoughts that we have every year in the past. In some ways we are living in the past. We replicate it genuinely. But time keeps moving on. Some things will never be replicated and the things that are different make us realize where we stand, to realize what has changed over the year and make us aware of the changes that are coming. Memories can also hurt us more deeply because the differences are sharper and more abrasive. Memories give us tantalizing pieces of the past, a melancholy sense of what has changed and never will be again. They also show us the things that have remained the same, and the things that never change. Those are the things that the Church reminds us of every year.

Remember the holy days.

The Narrative

    I love books.  I haven’t read many recently, but I assure you it isn’t from a sudden lack of interest in literature.  Anyway, I tend to read fiction faster than non-fiction, and I think it’s because fiction contains stories.  I realize that different kinds of things are significant to different people.  Every now and then I see beauty in mathematics and biology and paintings, but usually beauty is most apparent in those things when they fit appropriately into some kind of story.  For example, I have been experimenting with different artists and styles of music lately.  I have also been thinking about why I like certain songs and not others.  One observation is that I do not tend to like songs that I find.  I like songs that I have heard before at a concert, on the radio or especially if it was used in the soundtrack of a movie or a t.v. show.  Production teams often have members whose primary task is to select music for individual scenes.  I’m not talking about orchestral soundtracks here, I mean the pop, rock and melancholy acoustic genres that play in the background of the fun or dramatic sequences.  These songs fit better into our likings because they play a part in a story.  The notes and timbres themselves connect to certain moods, but they are particularly effective when they remind us of a time when the events that build the song’s context also formed our emotions into a corresponding mood.  If I know some of you, you’ve already started listening to KEZ, and if I know KEZ they probably started playing Christmas music around what?  Halloween?  Anyway, some of my friends have started listening to Christmas music on the radio, and I started thinking, what stations play Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Burl Ives, the Carpenters except at Christmas time?  Why is it that these artists have staying power for just one month of the year every year.  It isn’t as if they only performed Christmas music, but for some reason people still listen to them at Christmas time even though they are almost entirely forgotten the rest of the year.  Why?  I think it is because Christmas music tends to be associated with Christmas memories, and considering the cultural and familial significance we give to the holiday season it shouldn’t be surprising that we tend to have very fond memories of Christmas.  Our brains connect the memories with the patterns and shape of the song.  When we rehear those songs, our brains recall the pieces of our story that connected to that song.
    Dorothy Sayers and C. S. Lewis used analogies of stories to help visualize the way God works in the world.  They said God is like an author, and we are like characters in the story that he is writing.  I first heard that a few years ago.  It keeps growing on me.  If you take all the things that happen in day to day life and put them in the context of a story, it takes on a new significance.  Think about all the random events that happen in stories.  I can think of three types right now, the events that are clearly and immediately significant, events that seem insignificant initially but as a reader you later realize the event was key because of its connection to another event.  The third type depends a lot on the author.  Some authors do this well and others don’t.  These events are like scenery.  It really has no significance to the plot or story line, but it changes the tone or the pace of the story in a way that affects the reader.  I think Charles Dickens spends a lot of words setting scenes.  I think he does a great job, but I know people who love literature who simply cannot stand his pacing.  I don’t mind the fact that he spends words on scenery though because I think it adds emotional significance to the events that are inherently meaningful, even if they only force you to be patient.
    Significance is probably the most desired thing in today’s culture.  Everyone wants to be involved in significant charities, hold significant opinions, have significant friends.  The fear of an insignificant life followed by an insignificant death is probably responsible for a significant number of suicides.  If our lives are stories in progress being written and developed by an omnipotent, loving God, we should be fearless.  All this fear of insignificance must stem from our metanarrative about the world.  Are we worried that life is a roulette wheel and you just hope you throw your chips in the right cause or belief system?  Are we concerned that if we don’t find our identity and realize our full potential, we will have lost the game we call life?  I like the idea of the story because it strongly implies a sense of purpose behind everything.  Think about yourself as a character. Some characters react well to the events that occur to them and they find ways to improve the story.  Some characters are angered by the story they have found themselves in, so they make the story miserable for everyone else.  Some characters are just interesting and unusual so their antics and quirkiness make the story enjoyable.  Which kind of character are you?  Which kind do you want to be?




P.S. I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, I guess a story post is a good time to act on it.  If you can think of any stories about my dad, could you send them to me?  I guess you could post a comment, or you could e-mail me.  I've just been thinking about how many memories and stories there are that I don't want to forget, and I know you have them too, so I'd really like to compile some, and hang on to them.  Anyway, I think you all know my e-mail address.  It would really mean a lot to me if you did this and maybe helped to spread the word.  Thank you.