Christmas With Bukowski
Received an invitation yesterday to a Christmas service/event at Christ Community Church. An acquaintance here at Starbucks invited me. The printed invitation said there will be festive music, “our traditional giant Christmas tree, and a model train display.” That’s not all – “‘Silent night’ by candle light.”
I accepted the invitation without comment. I’ve thought about it since. There’s not a single reason or “rationalization” why I’d attend this entertainment event. For a starter, I prefer rock n’ roll to Christmas carols. Then I have no doubt that the newborn Jesus was as divine as you and I, not a bit more. I like model trains, in fact I invariably find them fascinating. I wish our government had conserved more opportunities for travel by train. Where is the American Shinkansen (bullet train)? There isn’t one… And the giant Christmas tree? Perhaps to remind us of the Walnut room tree in the now defunct Marshall Field store on State Street!
I am not one for an over-the-top Christmas spectacle in company with thousands of people.
The ‘Silent Night’ by candlelight gets to me the most though. How can anyone of us be ‘silent’ in the face of the large scale roundup of Hispanic immigrants by the government? Individuals held for summary expulsion if any blemish can be found or fabricated from their legal history? I feel horror when considering that evangelicals are front and center, to support by their silence what is being done.
From giant Christmas trees, train displays, and the carols, – I turn away in disbelief.
Rather I offer this poem by Charles Bukowski. You decide whether this resonates as truth.
The Pleasures of the Damned
the pleasures of the damned
are limited to brief moments
of happiness:
like the eyes in the look of a dog,
like a square of wax,
like a fire taking the city hall,
the county,
the continent,
like fire taking the hair
of maidens and monsters;
and hawks buzzing in peach trees,
the sea running between their claws,
Time
drunk and damp,
everything burning,
everything wet,
everything fine.
by Charles Bukowski
2 thoughts on “Christmas With Bukowski”
For several reasons I’ve been thinking about the experiences I’ve had within the realm of life where I may not share the beliefs of those around me, yet I readily participate in the rituals they espouse. Being present at these events does not mean I have bought into their version of faith, but what it does mean is that I can share in their joy of whatever means something to them. But I draw the line when the invitation transforms into an attempt to conscript me to believe as they believe. We all have our own perspective on life and as much as I have my own firm beliefs about how the human animal functions, I know that other people have the same capacity to see the world from their own point of view. This is called tolerance. And there is WAY too little tolerance in the world today.
Tolerance as you describe it is the principle of “live and let live.” That was the thinking behind the “separation of church and state” dictum which was more or less observed until recently. Evangelicals have always been all in for proselytizing, and now have become outright aggressive. Therein lies a very big problem.