Merry Christmas, Fag

Back in the day- "the day" being the era it was necessary to watch The Holy Grail in large groups after finding the one or two acquaintances who hadn't seen it and telling them "they had to," and ruining it for them by speaking, in awful English accents, along with the film and then being one of fifteen people telling them the next upcoming scene was hilarious - I watched The Holy Grail with some friends who were fine with everything in the film except the suggestion of sex at the Castle Anthrax. They were fine with all the comic violence to people and animals, the fingers in the eyes of religion and political authorities, all the death and disease, and everything else that was funny because it was unexpected and "wrong." That was all good, though I don't think we knew to say that back then. Point is, all that was okay, but comically referring to sex was right out, as one might say.

One dude- it was college, I probably called him dude- was particularly adamant that we fast forward (hey kids, back then we couldn't skip chapters) through the scene. This scene:

So we did. I didn't win by calling anyone babies or calling BS on their "sex bad: violence funny" nonsense. (After that and other complaints from Sex Baby, I knew I could make him uncomfortable by forcing him to hug when we greeted. I could also make him cry by sticking my tongue in his ear as we hugged when we greeted. So who wins that?)

Okay. I get that we're different, so we're sensitive to different things.
The thing is, the things about which we choose to be babies say a bit about the thing we think we are, or put another way, the things we pick are the things we pick.

So the MPAA says movie posters depicting fantasy torture are appropriate for all ages, but movie posters alluding to actual torture are not. Okay, that's who they are. They're corporate statist shills- at least that's one way of reading the claim they've staked.

So the preamble to the Iraqi Constitution is full of rhetorical language portraying the majority Shia population as a holy victimized minority now taking their divinely appointed place as protectors and saints. Sure they had a rough go of things for a while... a long while, point being, they pick and claim things now because of how "they" see themselves now and where they want to be in the future. Shiism is preserved and protected in their constitution as if there were presently an alternative. That's who they want to be so it makes sense to say those things.

Some "we" seems to see Christmas like that. It seems like we imagine it is threatened from some external source so we have to pretend we're defending something. Bill O'Lielly says some someones called secular humanists are waging a war on Christmas but I hopefully pretend that doesn't inform most of "us." I get emails telling me whom to boycott because they don't say "Merry Christmas" when you buy stuff. That's probably closer to home. We put up lights so we can see where the Jews and atheists live so they are more easily grabbed when the time comes. That's probably just me.

As for us...

Right now, our church sign reads Eat Christmas, Jerks!. Actually it reads, "Merry Christmas! Don't be Ashamed to Say It.

It probably is just me, but I find it hard to imagine that the "W '04," ""Pray for the Troops," and "CCV" bestickered SUVs rolling up and down Lone Hill are full of Secular Humanists on their way to Skeptics Society meetings.

No.

They're actually on the way to gay weddings- on their way from abortions.

No again, but I think you get my point.

It seems unlikely that the challenge we need or the bit of prophecy that may be good news to our lives is: Celebrate Christmas.

If the good news that is ostensibly embedded in Christmas is threatened, it is not by outsiders but us- those of us who practice it coercively or pretend we are actually defending anything or sticking it to the world by saying "Merry Christmas" like dogs protecting our fenced in yards from the mailman.

I hope that we feel something about Christmas is threatened because of what we do. I hope we can see that we're generally not ashamed to say, "Merry Christmas" and there is nothing world-sticking in saying it. I hope we can find anything in it that challenges the world (and our Christian practices are absolutely a part of the world). I hope there is some us that is different and sensitive to those things that might be more indicative of a God that loves humanity and has come to teach us, dwell among us, and change history because of that.

Or at least, if that's not possible, can we be a people that never has to hear "Christmas Shoes" again?