Thanks for that... sometimes I disappear from these pages for so long and forget to come back and thank those that visit for... well, visiting.
I would like to talk a little more about the sense of strange connection that permeates my being. The Prismatic Path, I've called it before, the Aurora Phantasy. For some time I spent a little bit of time thinking about my life in general, where it has been, and where it is going. I thought back to the first young man I ever fell in love with... and reveled at the spiritual excitement that that experience sponsored in me. I called his family recently to see if he would be stopping in for the holidays. (I had tried to get his number before... I haven't been lucky yet.) What most saddens me is that we have not spoken in nearly seven years, probably more... though I see his family quite often. His parents are deacons at the church my father goes to, although whatever strange religious experience he is going through (the denunciation of Christmas as a pagan holiday, and the refusal to celebrate it under any circumstances because of its pagan symbolism (the hanging of Baal's testacles on Nimrod's Penis (ornaments on the tree)), among others.
I find it difficult to imagine where this is coming from. But my imaginings have always been more creative than destructive. So, for your entertainment, and my own as well... I would like to present this simple story in prose form. Poetry can be beautiful, but sometimes directness is needed. Names were protected to change the innocent, as much as possible.
I knocked at the white door, my knuckles already paling in the cold air. I wrapped the colorful scarf tighter around my neck as I listened for the sound of movement beyond the blank expanse, marred only by a silver knob. Soon the door opened, however, and a familiar girl's face peered out at me.
"Anna!" I exclaimed. "It's so nice to see you again. Thank you so much for inviting us to your Christmas dinner. Father couldn't make it, he's humbugging at home." Anna's long dark hair, pale blue eyes, and creamy complexion reminded me immediately of her older brother, Nathanael, whose smile had turned on me in rare hope-lit moments in my youth, when it seemed that I faced only despair for the rest of my life. I realized, with a start, how much my life had changed since then... how much I had moved from being emotionally dependent on the smile or nod of one lone person, and became more resolved in my self, even in the face of disastrous desire.
My brother stepped up behind me, carrying the casserole dish covered in aluminum foil. The scent of basil and garlic wafted across the short distance between us, broken only by the crisp cool wind that rustled the ochre leaves still clinging to their mother trees. My brother's stance shifted slightly as he came to a halt near the door, and I remembered belatedly his own attraction to Anna, and the similarities that they shared on so many levels, an intricate and complicated friendship/attraction further dismantled by her extreme religious convictions and obediance to a modern rhetoric of the Love of Christ. In many southern states whose religious convictions are bound in the Southern Baptist megachurches of the modern day, religious fervor ruled the moldable. Love of Christ had almost a sexual connotation to it if you were to perceive the ecstacies that followers pursue in their praise and worship ceremonies. Thus, I think I knew the conflicts that my brother faced.
There was a mutual attraction, a type of shared spirituality, shared philosophy. A love of classic literature, for example, and the works of philosophy from ancient Greece and Rome. Anna was (and still is) bright, cheerful, intelligent, and witty. Her voice was musical and bright as well.
"Oh, Daniel and Richard... come in. It's too cold to stand here at the door." As the door closed behind us, Anna led us into their large kitchen. "We've got turkey, mashed potatoes, biscuits, yams, cranberry sauce and gravy, corn on the cob, green beans... just about anything you could want... and whatever you brought as well."
To be honest, I wasn't sure what my brother had made... but it probably had salmon in it. And while I have heard many sing its praises, the fishy fish is just not for me. I watched my brother disengage himself from my side, as I knew he would, and sought companionship with the other young men of the household, though Anna followed quickly. I remained in the kitchen, however, as I knew I would... and offered assistance to the matron of the house. Fourteen children were born to this elderly, wise woman, whose face still shone with an inner youth. Her long, graying black hair and near gray eyes had a quality of timelessness about them that is difficult to describe... as though she had always been alive and knew all the secrets that time forgot. It always surprised me that whenever I looked into her eyes I always found wisdom and compassion instead of revulsion and judgement, which was something I was all too familiar with.
Our host for the evening was of course her husband, the father of fourteen, a deacon of our church, one whose ministries I had been subjected to... and not always unwillingly. His blond hair and pale blue eyes revealed his Aryan descent, and for some reason I was grateful that Nathanael had inherited his mother's features, and perhaps more importantly, her inner strength and compassion. The deacon was not one for ordinary kindness... he believed in ecclesiastic law and a regimented authority bound in the church of Christ. It was this faith of his which allowed him to remain deacon and associate pastor through nearly four administrators of the church.
For some reason, at that moment, I recalled a moment from our youth service, which I and Nathanael had attended. Nathanael then, (and perhaps still is, but I have not seen him) surrounded himself with the insignia of rebellion. He wore an ankh pendant around his neck, and smoked proliferately. The scent of leather lightly caressed with cigarette smoke is still a compelling one in my case. But it was the ankh pendant that I wish to speak on. Our youth minister questioned him on the device, as though it were somehow an affront to the holy ground upon which he had brought it. Nathanael did not speak, and I felt obliged to protect him from this cruel instructor: "It is a symbol of Egyptian Christianity" (which is true - the ankh was adopted by Coptic christians through the fourth century) However, Nathanael revolted against that statement. I watched his eyes deepen in anger, the flash of bittersweet heaven crossing his pupils, and felt my throat lumpen when realized that anger was directed at me. I was stunned into silence, and felt fear. Not fear of harm, but fear of separation. This memory soon faded as I realized that our host was speaking to me.
"I know. I'm sorry that my father has been.... odd lately. He seems to believe that Christmas is the devil's holiday."
"Well, he has some valid points. If we go by the Hebrew calendar, the Messiah was born during the Feast of Trumpets, which is in September, as we all know."
"So, you too, have decided to give up on this annual tradition?"
"Perhaps when I am older and the children have moved on."
I sat in silence for a moment and shoveled a forkful into my mouth delicately, chewed and swallowed in discretionary time. "I think.... I think we have it wrong. We keep looking at the origins of the holiday, as though it is this which defines its character.... If we were to do the same with the Universe... why it would seem that its natural state is chaos, or perhaps nonexistance. The natural state of man is spiritual in nature, if we are to believe the Word of God... so how can we account for the changes that they go through, both the Universe and Man. Are we to be forever bound by the laws which created us, or is our possibility in the opportunities that await for us: the ways in which we can expand ourselves beyond our limitations?"
Our host looked at me as though my head had fallen off, but I continued.
"I cannot deny that the origins of the holiday are indeed pagan, but we have only to see the effects that the holiday has had since then to realize that it is a powerful tool for the Miracles of the Heart. And if God created the human being, with his heart and all that it is capable of, then he must have realized that it would one day be used on these days, and in this nature. The Christmas Season has become the time of spiritual faith and light in a sometimes otherwise darkened world. A world of cold and snow in the northern hemisphere... and one which is in dire need of a spiritual hope. A hope that enacts the miracles of the heart. It allows caritas, and all the other enfeeblements of love: kindness, devotion, patience. I am sure you know the list more than I."
I paused for a moment. "Should we throw out the human heart? Which aches to find spiritual light and meaning in a darkened, bitter, cold world? The season has always been a tradition of bringing light and love to others, and it is something that we need to learn to do on each and every day... but particularly for Christmas: allowing the heart its chance for miracles, and for God to work through human hearts to affect the whole human race."
I quieted down, focusing on my plate and realizing I had spoken too much. I worried that I had overstepped my bounds, and realized that I had at once criticized my father, my pastor, and their views on what God is and how he is to be worshipped. But if worship is something that must be dictated and rules laid out for it to be experienced "correctly", I want no part of it.