Posted on 12/20/2002 11:12:38 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Our old friends, Jim and Dorothy, baptized their new baby the other day, and my family was thrilled to be invited. The ceremony took place at St. Michael's Church, a gorgeous edifice on North Cleveland.
My boys don't get to Catholic churches much, for obvious reasons. In fact, the only previous time they've been in one was at Jim and Dorothy's wedding--you know friends are in a special zone of niceness when they invite your boisterous toddlers to their Big Day. The boys were too small, then, to process their lovely though--to an outsider--somewhat eerie and rococo surroundings.
Not anymore. "This is scaring me,'' my 5-year-year-old said, taking in the waxen-faced, life-sized statues of saints and apostles, clutching my hand and pressing tightly against my leg. "This is freaky.''
My 7-year-old took the opposite approach, rushing excitedly around the enormous nave, kneeling on the kneeler before a statue of the Virgin Mary and clasping his hands solemnly in front of him before running off to try to engage the priest and anyone else he could collar in complex theological comparisons of Judaism and Catholicism.
I, in one of those impossible contortions that parents are regularly called upon to perform, tried to simultaneously reassure one son while dampening the enthusiasm of the other. (Not that I am against curiosity, but curiosity has its place, and I'm sure the priest appreciated me preventing my older son from quizzing him as to the identify of every figure above the altar--and it was as crowded as a Cecil B. De Mille film--until after the ceremony).
This juggling act, balancing your own beliefs and those of other people, is tough, particularly at this time of year, when Christmas inspires public displays of religious zeal. During Hanukkah, the Lubavitchers (those bearded black hats who don't like to be called Ultra-Orthodox) set up a big electric menorah on a sliver of public land in my leafy suburban paradise of Northbrook and now, in its place, is a nativity scene.
That bothers some people, who argue that the Menorah is a less blatantly religious symbol--just an ambitious candelabra, really--compared to the creche, which they say is basically a crucifix with straw.
To me, there is something inherently humorous in arguing that your own religious trappings are generic enough for public consumption, while somebody else's are too powerful to let off private land.
The creche doesn't bother me. I'm far more offended by timidity than zeal. I find it noxious the way everyone automatically takes the safe route. The way that the big decorated tree in the lobby of the Cook County Building is boldly labeled a "Culture Tree,'' lest anyone mistakenly associate it with that holiday on Dec. 25.
At our elementary school this week, the "holiday sing'' kept rigidly to secular, commercial carols along the lines of "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.'' There was no "Silent Night." No "Come All Ye Faithful.'' No "O Holy Night.'' (I don't believe in Jesus any more than I believe in the Tooth Fairy, but I love "O Holy Night.'') Even "Jingle Bells'' was in French. Is that what America is all about? Changing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas'' to "We Wish You a Happy Holiday"? Is that 21st century sophistication?
No way. There is a meanness in the squabble over public decorations that I can't endorse. Is it the fault of all those who want the creche in front of City Hall that the menorah is a candlestick on steroids? Or in the shorthand I used arguing this with a friend: "We don't have a baby Jesus to stick in front of the menorah.'' The Lubavitch could put anything they want up--they could emblazon the menorah with the Tetragrammaton, the unutterable four-letter name of God, and official Northbrook wouldn't care. So it seems somehow cranky to complain that the other team stuck up a religious symbol with too much spiritual oomph.
The solution to all this would be to limit our religious celebration to our homes and places of worship, but that doesn't work, simply put, because Christmas is such a Big Honking Deal, it spills out into stores, schools and public spaces (it even warps the fabric of time--people are wishing me Happy Hanukkah, even though Hanukkah ended two weeks ago, I suppose out of the touching notion that no person should be without a holiday at the end of December).
Why is the only solution to ban things? Why not strive to appreciate it all--enjoying your own faith most, of course, as the Only True and Right Way, but at least viewing the expressions of others as something more than automatically offensive. It's worth a try.
I say, the more the merrier! If next month the Muslims want to set up a big crescent, great. If the month after that, the atheists want to put up a big illuminated Nothing, well, that will be interesting too. That's what America is about. Sure, we might squirm when the Satanists unveil their big glowing goat's head for Halloween. But heck, it will be what my kids' teachers refer to as an opportunity for learning.
To me, the entire thing boils down to a question of confidence. I think the barn door is open in this country and the cows of tolerance are long gone. We are not threatened by papier-mache. We can let the Three wise men linger without undermining the Republic. Leave the narrow, nobody-here-but-us-chickens approach to the Saudis.
Merry Christmas!!!
A moment of silence for the real Mayor Daley, who'd have thwacked some empty skulls.
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