In my mind the concept of sincerity is deeply linked to Charlie Brown. It might be particularly his Christmas tree. The thing about Charlie Brown, is that he doesn't always do things particularly well. He's outwitted by Lucy, outplayed by any opposing baseball team, and intimidated to the point of paralysis by a cute little girl with red hair. If that wasn't bad enough, the Christmas tree he picks out is the most pathetic little piece of wood you've ever seen. Really, it's embarrassing.Sometimes it's hard to tell if rich people are sincere. It's really hard to sift through their motives. If a person has any financial gain from anything, we automatically assume that was their primary motive, which doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. Money is a good motivation for a lot of things. There are quite a few things I would do if I got paid that I wouldn't do otherwise. On the other hand, I've also been paid for quite a few things that I would have volunteered for. I have two jobs right now that I would still love to do even if I didn't get paid. I also remember a time when I was working at a polling place campaigning for a really great woman who was running for a political office. It was one of the few times that I actually was getting paid. Some impertinent kid came up and asked me how much I was getting paid. I gave him a funny look and tried to dodge the question. I really would have been working if I wasn't getting paid. Regardless, it somehow felt like my support for the candidate was diminished by the fact that I ended up with more money afterwards.
Some things would be easier as a Catholic, or at least a Protestant with a thicker liturgy. Evangelicals have too many options. We get to be cynical about everything our church does and criticize it all from our higher perspective. If we only had one option for a church or denomination, we would have to submit to it, and sincerely follow its traditions rather than thinking, “well we do this well, but maybe if I went to that church it would be better.” The same thing is true with the huge amounts of information we have about other cultures. If we didn’t have Chinese restaurants in every mall, we would just assume that Chinese food was weird and sincerely hold to our belief that hamburgers are the perfect food. But now we can see both and compare them objectively and rationally, so we can see the merits of both and pick one based on our mood. The same thing goes for Western vs. Eastern philosophy and ethics and culture. If we were more isolated, we would be jingoistic and xenophobic, but we could say with all sincerity that “the old ways are the best ways.” And “everything our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did was right and fit.” Now we have so many reasonable options to choose from that to pick one and stick with it seems silly and naïve. Real objects for comparison cause us to question the supremacy and dominance of our previous ways of thinking. Every country had a self-centered map until a bigger army or an angry scientist forcefully enlightened them.
I think sincerity has become a sort of idol to some people. You’ve heard the idea that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere. Well, an extension of that is basically that sincere people go to heaven. Think about that. When we try to come up with a feel-good religion, we feel pretty comfortable sending insincere people who believe the truth to hell as long as the people who believe in illusions sincerely get to be happy for eternity. I’m not really criticizing that right now. My point is just that our culture really really likes sincere people. At the same time, we struggle with sarcasm, cynicism, and irony.
Here’s my theory about why everyone says they don’t like sequels. Usually a movie, starts as a story. A sequel usually starts as a budget. Of course, all movies have stories and budgets, but in the first movie, the driving force is someone who wants this story to get onto the screen and to be displayed in a new medium. Often for a sequel, the company says, we made so much money of these characters, settings, voices the first time, we can do the same thing with the same characters, settings and voices. All we need now is to come up with some story to squeeze them all back into.
If you've seen the Charlie Brown Christmas movie, you know that the antagonist is commercialism. Those big, nasty, pink, aluminum trees symbolize the commercial approach to Christmas. They tower over the pathetic little conifer with its wooden stand that attracts Charlie Brown’s attention. Well, I guess the little tree is like the first movie. It stood alone. It was just planted and grew and was the best tree it could be. It didn’t really have a “purpose” it just was and then someone who respected that (good ol’ Chuck) decorated it and honored it. The pink aluminum tree misses the point, because it skips all the in-between steps and goes straight to decoration, which is the “purpose.”
So what about Christmas itself? Mary and Joseph “celebrated” Christmas because their “Christmas present” was a one-of-a-kind God-baby! They didn’t have a Christmas tree, but they had Christ. They were doing it for the first time, so they weren’t going through the motions. I like Christmas trees, even fake ones (we’ve always had a fake tree at my house). Shopping and music and presents and singing and cinnamon and gingerbread houses are fantastic. At times though, I’m skeptical about pretty much every “holiday tradition.” I’m a bit tired of most of them and a lot of them seem sillier to me than ever before. I want to just enjoy them the way I always have, but I have all these doubts about whether these things actually have any meaning anymore.
So here I am in the midst of the holidays naïvely enjoying the pretty lights and festive colors but also chuckling at goofy lyrics and scoffing at premature Christmas decorations. I desperately want to avoid the cliché answers (there’s the skeptic again), but others are difficult and complicated. All I can think of is that maybe in order to be sincere, you have to risk looking silly to all the skeptics.
If you’re going to look silly though, it might as well be for a good reason. Here’s a challenge: try to find a connection between every Christmas (or other holiday) tradition you have and the birth of Jesus (or whatever the cause for the holiday). That way you can stick to your traditions, but you can keep them with a new level of sincerity. I would love to see some examples in the comments.
