The thermometer begins to rise and people start to divest themselves of their 'winter woolies'...(huh?)...it's warmer...the days are white bright...flies are attacking every moist crease on your face...the cat's too hot to be handled much and the first damp bath towel of the year is in the freezer waiting for the time when, at 3.30am I cannot sweat a moment longer and MUST HAVE SOME RELIEF...
They've been playing carols in David Jones' for weeks now and I do believe that Rick and I spied the beginnings of the Christmas merchandise in Myers and September wasn't even over. Friends are talking about going to the beach and packing picnics for Christmas Day...or spending the day in the pool. It's just weird.
There's no way, either theologically or culturally, that this is Christmas. Whether your reason for the season is the birth of the Baby or a celebration of the Winter Solstice or whatever the reason...it just isn't Christmas...and actually, liturgically speaking, we're just breaking through into Advent and the preparation of our minds and hearts begins for Christmas...but it isn't Christmas...
This is the one time of the year when I feel like a stranger in a foreign land...well, except maybe at Easter when people start wishing you a Happy Easter on Good Friday...but that's a whole other story...
I am confused and...discombobulated...and I don't understand why it should be so...this is my 5th Christmas here...you'd think that I would be used to it by now...
I suppose that I've had 53 years of seeing and understanding and experiencing it all in such a different way. However it works, I know that the idea of Christmas evokes images and words that I have stored up over the years and every one of my senses carries a code that the word Christmas unlocks for me.
Words and music flood my ears - O Come, O Come Emmanuel; The Messiah; David Essex singing 'A Winter's Tale'...
Tastes and smells come flooding back to me - bread sauce; Christmas pine trees; the first G&T of Christmas Day; spice and cinnamon in Marks and Spencer's Christmas room spray; Bailey's Irish Cream poured generously over ice...
My skin tingles at the thought of cold, fresh air and remembers the suffocation of lots of people in a small room and the central heating roaring away...
My mind's eye is softened and brightened by candlelight and fairy lights and I can still see the faces of people who no longer share this space and time but who nevertheless come and celebrate with me.
The meaning and traditions have been etched onto my psyche in ways that I am barely conscious of and don't profess to understand. I just KNOW the difference between Advent and Christmas. I FEEL that it can't be right that we're into it all so early and somehow the meaning I ascribe to Christmas and tried to make a part of how I lived...not so much now but certainly for a long time...is a bit affronted by the commercialism and the excess...I'm constantly on the look out for other landmarks and indicators that this it Christmas but I keep finding a dissonance between what I experience and what I expect.
They say that what is known by heart is what the heart knows. I was first told this in Sunday School when I was trying to learn passages of scripture.
What is known by heart is what the heart knows.
I know about Christmas. Actually, I think this might just be that I believe some things about how Christmas should be celebrated. But the truth is that's only my Christmas...one tiny part of the Northern Hemisphere experience of Christmas. And on the basis of what I believe...I'm prepared to declare a whole continent wrong.
Australia...your Christmas story had been judged by me and found wanting.
I think that might be described as prejudice on my part. Pre-judging a situation based on my experiences and preferences. And my prejudices run 53 years deep...not as deep as some but still enough to create a track that has ruts on either side.
What is the opposite of prejudice? Is it openness? I think it might be.
What can I do to open myself up to some different possibilities? I know that continuing to moan and complain about how it just isn't Christmas isn't working for anyone...least of all me. So what would happen if I chose to embrace a Southern Hemisphere Christmas (although not too tightly cause it is pretty hot here...)? Just see things a bit differently...be a bit more open to yes and a bit less closed to anything new...could my heart come to know some new truths?
Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent. The anticipation and excitement of a 'new thing'...a new way of being and doing...
Here we go...
http://youtu.be/Yv927QNtz78
'O Come, O Come Emmanuel'
