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Sunday
I’m traveling today, visiting sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren in Buford, Georgia, so you’ll have to settle for one of my father’s poems that I’ve shared before. When rightwing politicians accused cultural elites of waging a war against Christmas, my father liked to point out that Christmas’s most iconic symbols have actually been imported from other religions.
The incident that triggered this poem was a legal battle over a Texas county that erected a nativity scene outside its courthouse in 2011. Scott Bates starts with the fact that Christianity, like all religions, is syncretistic—which is to say, it is an amalgamation of rituals and symbols from all over, some articulated by inspired individuals (Jesus and his followers), some taken from earlier religions. Another way of putting this is that every religion is a symbol system that human beings employ to come as near as they can to the (ultimately unknowable) mind of God. The universe will always have mysteries that we cannot penetrate, and humans use whatever materials—whatever symbols—are at hand to do what they can.
Devout followers may deny the affinities between the crucifixion of Jesus and the dismemberment of the Egyptian god Horus or overlook the fact that Jesus was probably not born in December, the time of the winter solstice and the Roman feast of Saturnalia. After all, they like to believe their religious symbols are “pure.” Examined carefully, however, Christmas proves to be more inclusive than they think.
Christmas at the Courthouse
By Scott Bates
The wise-men are Egyptian,
The virgin birth, Antique;
The evergreen is Roman
The manger scene is Greek;
T’is the Saturnalian Season
When solar gifts are cool,
So Happy Birthday, Horus!
From our Multiculture School.
If those beating the war drum over Christmas were to embrace such an open version of the Christmas story, maybe we wouldn’t be having all these battles. Then again, maybe they want people of other faiths to feel excluded.
Fa la la la la.
Other Christmas Poems by Scott Bates
Christmas Bird Count from Santa’s Sleigh
Where are the Games of Yesteryear
Moving towards Death’s Doorway
No Room for Them in the (Holiday) Inn
The Animals Are Trying to Warn Us
Holly & Ivy Dance to the Music of the Moon
Night before Christmas on the Moon
Move with the Wind, Sleep under the Snow
Midwinter Transformation: A Poem
An ABC of Children’s Books
The Divine Comedy, Doggerel Version
Books Unleashed in Christmas Carrels
Epiphany Sunday and the Arabian Nights
Epiphany from a Camel’s Point of View
A Roc for Christmas (Annual Bird Count)
