…if there is no great machine
in the name of which to speak,
how is action set,
     how can action be required,
          and what is to be done?

–excerpt On Nietzsche, by Georges Bataille, trans. by Stuart Kendall, p. 143

Monday is the “day after”.

Christmas day was yesterday.  I’m never able to simply “move on” as if all the preparations, and Christmas day were just another day, and the next day comes as I am habituated to expect.

Christmas is the  metaphysical axis of our way-of-life in “the West.”   The season is announced by a tide of advertising, following after Halloween.  Commerce has come to be the obvious note of the weeks prior to December the 25th.  On that morning those items are unwrapped, to receive scant notice as a consequence of the shear surplus of “stuff.”  (Is there not always room in the landfill for more plastic?)

What happened to us?  How did this happen?  Our lives are more complex than the mind is able unravel, moving parts hidden, a concealed complexity that we label “the supply chain.”  E-commerce amounts to almost 15% of retail sales in the United States.  Desire gratification begins by a signal received by a supplier located somewhere in China, or in Singapore, or…   Life has become abstracted.  This feels impersonal and it is.

A civilization is the outcome of the tools available to a particular ethos.  How do we express our life-force, reciprocally meet our shared need for food, shelter, emotional support of community?

On Christmas eve I happened upon a Christmas special on WTTW, a concert produced by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, Salt Lake City.  The offering of holiday music by the choir, and orchestra was visual and auditory perfection.  The “play list” concluded with Handel’s Hallelujah chorus performed magnificently.  Could I ask for more?

At the program’s conclusion I felt cold.  It was only another rendition of imperial Christianity, the notion of Jesus as empire maker, Christus-Imperator.

What is wrong here, this blatant rotation of the axis?  What happened to the idea of the carpenter’s son, the newborn who matured into a uncompromising critic of the very notion of empire, “the world” under the aegis of one principle, unified in the service of commerce-uber-alles?  A never-enough-world…

***

So here we are.  Do you have a song to suggest?  Is there a tune to hold onto?  Indeed!  This tune by The Band, Christmas Must Be Tonight, tells the truth of the matter!

CHRISTMAS MUST BE TONIGHT

By The Band

Come down to the manger
See the little stranger
Wrapped in swaddling clothes, the prince of peace
The wheels start turning
Torches start burning
And the old wise men journey from the East

How a little baby boy
Bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter
Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

A shepherd on a hillside
Where over my flock I bide
Oh a cold winter night a band of angels sing
In a dream I heard a voice
Say, “Fear not, come rejoice
It’s the end of the beginning, praise the newborn king”

How a little baby boy
Bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter
Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

I saw it with my own eyes
Written up in the sky
But why a simple herdsmen such as I?
And then it came to pass
He was born at last
Right below the star that shines on high

How a little baby boy
Bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter
Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight
Son of a carpenter
Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

Composed by Robbie Robertson