Feliz Navidad
How do I know the holidays are fully arrived, that Christmas is a settled “fact” of social life? (We must agree that a fact is not limited to objects.) I attended my first choral event, a concert performed by a community chorus, supported by a chorus Brass ensemble. The theme of the event was bells: Sleigh Bells Ring Are You Listening?
I enjoyed the evening, even the venue which was the sanctuary of a protestant church, well proportioned with high peaked ceiling, a 10 foot wood-finished cross, gleaming in the lights, suspended above the altar. The cross was always in view, a statement to that church communities austere Calvinistic heritage. I doubt the members of that church community are knowledgeable about the severe tenants of John’s Calvin’s theology: the Five Points of Calvinism.
Total depravity
Unconditional selection
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints
This arcane formula, sharp edged, something that the Puritans of New England would have known well, has been erased from our memory by the succession of generations. I think that we encounter it in the ubiquitous practice of capitalism all around us, especially at this holiday shopping season. Advertising appeals to our infantile desire to want “more,” the avarice of our child-self to never have enough. Furthermore the winners, the CEOs, the shareholders who truly benefit from the shopping frenzy play their parts not because they deserve to be well-to-do, — by chance, as if by divine selection, they are well born or favored by circumstance, doing what they do. And does not everyone know there is very limited space in the winners circle, just enough for 1% or so? Number 4, good fortune (grace) and everything else, just is, a reality imposed upon all of us alike, irresistible. And the final tenet, translated into a 21st century idiom: you can’t change the way things are, the status quo endures.
I enjoyed the concert. I was elevated by the voices and the instruments. The Hallelujah Chorus by George Frideric Handel was saved for the last piece. Everyone in the audience stood in rapt attention as the Handel’s work was performed. I stood to honor the work and the man who was the medium for such magnificence. While moved by the sweep of the stanzas, I noticed from my 21st century vantage point, “and He shall reign forever and ever….” the notion that enduring harmony among all of us, is some else’s responsibility. This is patently false. That is our work. It is up to us, win or loose.
A palpable tragedy of our time will be if we allow climate catastrophe to overwhelm humanity and all of Nature — and then, who will sing the Hallelujah Chorus at Christmas time?
