Joy To The World

It is an amazing, humbling thing to be alive in our time and in our place. It is almost beyond comprehension. It borders on magical.

I speak of many things: the awesome miracle of your being born for one, given the cells and atoms and odds and centuries and DNA and hundreds of parents involved in the process. 

Next, the astounding semi-reality of our surroundings.

Who can explain it? How do we understand the complexity and mystery of 21st Century life? Not one of us knows something as simple as how a bird flies or an airplane flies. Or a lightbulb glows or a tulip bulb grows. Or what a transistor does. How does an App work? Uhh, one more time, please, explain about the recombinant DNA stuff?

The Age of Miracles is upon us and we hardly know whether to gasp in amazement or turn our heads in disbelief. A cell phone the size of a pack of cigarettes holds more information than Harvard’s Library and every teenager you meet is carrying one.

Many of us earn enough money in a month to travel roundtrip to Paris with enough cash left over to eat breakfast in a swanky cafe. We can do the entire 12,000 mile trip in less time than it took our grandparents to walk from Ukiah to Hopland.

Ours is the first age in history when hunger and famine have been conquered, and in the USA even the impoverished are housed with air conditioning, HD TVs, cell phones, dishwashers, and so well fed they’re more likely to be obese than malnourished.

But still. Amid all this and far, far more, our spirits and hearts remain troubled and anguished. As a people we are greedy, grasping, warring and envious. Yet we are also honorable, courageous, fearless and protective. We are proud, and for good reasons. We fight, but sometimes have no choice.

This is our planet, our country, our town and our neighborhood. We live in a land of comfort and pleasure, but we sweat and fret it might be snatched from us.

There are billions on earth yet we are lonely. The world has never been so safe and life has never been so easy, but we remain fearful, confused. Our trust is measured, our faith is watery. And now, right on schedule, around the bend comes Christmas. 

It is historically true we become more generous, giving, forgiving and kind around the holiday season. We tuck folded five dollar bills into red kettles outside Raley’s to bring comfort to people we will never meet. We greet strangers with genuine wishes for health and good will.

We hear the ancient songs and we pause, and sometimes we move our lips to whisper the words: “It came upon a midnight clear…”

But because the season and the day bring out the best in us we are told we ought celebrate Christmas every day. Why carve out a few measly weeks each December to share peace and joy with one another, then revert to 50 weeks huddled back in our stifled cocoons? 

Our lives, they say, should be never-ending seasons of perpetual giving, and Christmas should remain in our hearts all year ‘round. But if every day is Christmas then no day is truly Christmas.

Because if we can’t find time to smile at a stranger and give a homeless gent a $10 bill on December 22, is it likely we’ll find the time and money come next July?

So it’s now, in late December that we give gifts to one another because in our society there is no other time. If you think it seems crass and commercial you’re right. It’s both, and more. 

Perhaps you think the holiday season is a waste of time and money. And maybe, for reasons having to do with your principles and high-minded integrity you plan to skip the entire charade. Please do. 

My guess is it won’t be the first time. I will miss you.

Christmas isn’t meaningless, because we bring meaning to Christmas. It’s our time to give. Maybe we’ll give diamonds to someone we love, or a plate of cookies. Maybe you’ll smile and nod and hand some guy fifty bucks who needs it a lot more than you. Maybe you have a candy cane for a kid.

Or maybe you’ll send a Christmas card to someone you’ll never see again; Paul Emmonds and I have traded cards for 30-plus years, but I’lll never send him another.

Sometimes I walk our cold dark nighttime streets, up Clay to Highland, over to Standley and around Ukiah’s tree-shrouded western edge. When I allow myself to think about our flawed, confusing and wonderful world, I feel ignorant and bewildered.

But I wouldn’t, and couldn’t, trade it for anything. I’m glad to be here and I’m glad you’re here too. 

Merry Christmas.