The Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön tells the story of a woman being chased by tigers. She gets to the edge of a cliff as the tigers close in on her. She looks over the cliff and luckily discovers a vine with which to climb down. As she’s descending away from the tigers, she looks down and notices that on the ground below, more tigers pace back and forth.
Gates open and the procession begins. Thousands line the street, throwing flowers and laurels, waving madly, reaching to touch power as it passes them. Security guards watch the crowd for dissidents, agitators, and zealots, intent on doing harm. The man coming through the gate sits tall in the saddle, looking every bit the champion he is meant to be. A mantle of authority rests easily on his shoulders as he climbs higher to the center of the city, taking his rightful place as lord protector of this people. While this sounds like a political rally from our prolonged and protracted presidential season, the parade I describe took place two thousand years ago in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.No – not that parade – not Jesus’ triumphal entry. The other one – the triumphal entry of Pontius Pilate into Jerusalem.
Let me say right now that I do not subscribe to the current “War on Christmas.” It is a fabrication created by a partisan media desperate for an audience. I believe there was a war on Christmas, once, long ago – a calculated attack by the retail industry, supported by the marketing sector and sponsored by manufacturing moguls, in order to appropriate a holiday celebrated by most Americans and turn it into a festival of voracious spending. These factions created a sacrament of gift-giving, concocted our modern Santa Claus from the very saintly Nicholas of Myra, and replaced the Light of the World with blow-up nativity scenes that pay lip-service to Jesus being the “reason for the season.”
Two days ago, in Paris, eight terrorists armed themselves with rifles, and went to nightclubs, restaurants, a concert, and a soccer game, where they shot dozens of innocent people at random. They then triggered explosives strapped to their bodies, blowing themselves and anyone around them to bits. One hundred and twenty-nine are dead. Ninety-nine remain in critical condition.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what gives me life. In the book, Sleeping with Bread, the authors explain the title with a familiar story from World War II. The massive bombings in England during the war left many orphans starving in the streets. Those fortunate enough to be found were placed in refugee camps, where they received food, health care, and a safe place to live. But many of the children couldn’t sleep at night. Some tossed and turned, others lay there with anxious eyes always open, even though they were assured and re-assured that they were in good hands. A psychiatrist listened to the children, and discovered that they were afraid if they fell asleep, they might wake up once again homeless and without food. So he came up with an idea. He suggested giving each child a piece of bread to take to bed with them. The children, clutching their bread through the night, slept soundly, knowing that they ate that day and what they held in their hands ensured that they would eat again tomorrow. They were at peace, holding onto what gave them life.
Unlike most city kids from the 1970’s, I grew up with a garden. My father watched Euell Gibbons one winter and that spring we were clearing the brambles and briars from a vacant lot next to our house in preparation for our first garden. Dad purchased an enormous tiller, and began turning the earth. We planted seeds, indoors and out, each year for our garden. My sister and I tended our own plot: I took the tomatoes and she took the peppers.
What a theological conundrum. Am I supposed to enjoy a symbol of suffering, a device for execution, by dipping it in peanut butter? What part body of Christ on the crucifix do I break off and eat first? The head? The parts with the chocolate nails? Did a priest bless chocolate Jesus so that transubstantiation can occur? Seeking answers, I flipped it over to read the ingredients and discovered that these chocolate crosses and crucifixes were also kosher. That opened up a whole other can of theological worms.
Once, long ago in college, I went through the necessary ritual of dating. On Valentine’s Day my junior year, I received a gift from a young man I had been seeing for several months. He sent me a singing telegram of the song “You Light Up My Life.” I think he meant it to be “our song,” because a month earlier at Christmas, he gave me a spinning musical unicorn plinking out the very same “You Light Up My Life” on a metal cylinder. He was clearly very excited about the Christmas gift, he thought it expressed our relationship perfectly: a brass, horned equine, revolving on itself to strands of Debbie Boone. I accepted my Christmas gift with a bewildered smile, not knowing what to say. The poor boy never realized I absolutely hate the song “You Light Up My Life.”
Milo, the hero in Norman Juster’s book, The Phantom Tollbooth, finds himself on a fantastic journey in a strange land to rescue two princesses. He and his companions must go through extraordinary and sometimes dangerous territories to reach the mountains where the princesses are held captive.
Back when I was in seminary and, like my fellow students, full of indignation at a world teeming with injustice and inequity – way back when the consequences of fighting every battle that crossed my path seemed unimportant in the face of so many urgent causes – a very wise professor said these words to me: “You must choose the hill you die on.”