Living In Interesting Times

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light 

Next year all our troubles will be out of sight  

Have yourself a merry little Christmas 

Make the Yuletide gay 

Next year all our troubles will be miles away. 

I heard that song recently, but I don't believe it. I do not think that “next year all our troubles will be out of sight” or “miles away.” If the political prognosticators are correct, by the time the twelve days of Christmas are over, our troubles will be just beginning. This is the first time in my life that I feel like next year will be far worse than this year.  

Yet others disagree. The other day I was speaking with a young woman, who was grinning from ear to ear and gushing about the political appointments being made by the incoming president and what they promise for the future. She is having a “merry little Christmas.” 

There is an old curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” Whether it is a blessing or a curse, we certainly live in interesting times!   It is the perceived danger of our times that makes them interesting. Taking risks pumps adrenaline and releases endorphins. That is the attraction of extreme sports. 

I am finishing up my seasonal reading of Auden’s “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio.” The penultimate section of the poem is about the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod. These are Mary and Joseph’s final words as they arrive in Egypt:  

Safe in Egypt we shall sigh 

For lost insecurity.  

Only when her terrors come 

Does our flesh feel quite at home.  

 

Something in us is attracted to risk.  When things feel too secure, we “sigh for lost insecurity.” Only when life has an element of insecurity “does our flesh feel quite at home.”  So we invite disaster. We yearn for it. I think that explains the 2024 election results. 

Even though we buy insurance and wear seat belts to guard against accidents, there is something in us that likes living without a safety net. Here in New Hampshire our state motto is “Live Free or Die.” We are the only state in the union that does not require adults to wear seat belts or carry auto insurance. Granite Staters like risk. 

All humans like a certain level of risk. We evolved as a species to survive in a dangerous world. Our bodies are designed for it. We expect it. We thrive on it. When there is no danger, we seek it out. We invent it. Hence the fascination of conspiracy theories. 

People in war weary countries, like Ukraine and Gaza, are sick of war and yearn for normality. They would give anything to live secure and “boring” lives. If I lived in one of those lands I would feel the same way. Most Americans living today do not remember real civil unrest or national economic distress.  

The American Civil War and the Great Depression are ancient history. Today many Americans think that danger comes in the form of vaccines, transgender people, 2½ percent inflation, and migrants crossing the border to pick our fruits and vegetables.  We do not know what real danger is. I suspect we will find out in 2025.  

Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett wrote: “The phrase ‘May you live in interesting times’ is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue ‘May you come to the attention of those in authority’ and finish with ‘May the gods give you everything you ask for.’ I have no idea about its authenticity.”  

I don’t know if these sayings are authentic either, although I suspect they are not Chinese. In any case, we live in interesting times. As we approach a new year, I am wishing more than ever that Americans had voted for boring times, inattention from those in authority, and unanswered prayers.  

Rachel’s Lament

This Advent I have been working through W. H. Auden’s Christmas poem, “For the Time Being.” There is something to be said for viewing the familiar biblical story through someone else’s eyes. It is a helpful corrective to our cultural myopia to see through the eyes of someone from another time and place. Auden was an Englishman who was writing in Brooklyn during the turbulent years of the Second World War. 

We tend to view the first Christmas through the images and colors of Currier and Ives. It sells better. We picture a cozy stable bathed in starlight with angel’s voices singing in the background. We like snowy Christmas cards, Hallmark rom-coms, and feel-good television specials. We put out of our minds the brutality of first century Palestine. We omit the Slaughter of the Innocents and the Flight to Egypt from church Christmas pageants.  

The first Christmas was a time of violence. This Christmas is a time of violence in many places of the world, with more conflict likely on the horizon. At Christmas it is important to remember the Massacre of the Innocents, which was an act of government violence that forced the Holy Family to become refugees in a foreign land. It is not unlike the violence that forces families to leave their countries and huddle at America’s southern border, only to be told there is no room in the American Inn. 

The Lament of Rachel is ringing in my ears this Christmas. It voices the grief of the mothers of Bethlehem whose children were killed by the soldiers of Herod, king in Jerusalem. The words in the biblical Christmas account are from the prophet Jeremiah: 

“A voice is heard in Ramah, 

    weeping and great mourning, 

Rachel weeping for her children 

    and refusing to be comforted, 

    because they are no more.” 

I can’t help but think of the mothers in Israel and Gaza and Ukraine and Russia, who have lost their children to war this year. I think of the mothers in America who have lost their children to school shootings or drug overdoses. Human inhumanity to humans colors Christmas this year. Auden’s rewrites Rachel’s song for his time: 

On the Left are grinning dogs, peering down into a solitude 

too deep to fill with roses. 

On the Right are sensible sheep, gazing up at a pride where 

no dream can grow. 

Somewhere in these unending wastes of delirium is a lost child, 

speaking of Long Ago in the language of wounds. 

To-morrow, perhaps, he will come to himself in Heaven. 

But here Grief turns her silence, neither in this direction, nor

in that, nor for any reason.  

And her coldness now is on the earth forever. 

 

Auden’s song sounds bleak. What a Grinch! He definitely is not in the Christmas spirit! We prefer Dolly Parton or Mariah Carey singing our favorites. At church we like to sing Joy to the World or Silent Night, where all is calm and all is bright. We like packaged crèches with posed characters who do not weep ... except in joy.  

All those lovely traditions have their place at Christmas. I love them too. Christmas is a welcome respite from real life, if only for a day. We all need some light in the darkness. But it is also important to acknowledge the shadow side of Christmas. That is why so many churches have “Blue Christmas” services. This Christmas let us take time to listen to Rachel, and all the Rachels who lament this Christmas.