Charlie

Here we are at holiday season again in the U.S.  It starts with Thanksgiving.  Which is a day to give thanks for all that we have through the year.  It is based in our earliest history as a nation.  Really, one of the founding events for Americans as a people...the merging of Native American and European cultures.

But in reality, it has become nothing more than a day to party.  Just like every other popular holiday here.  And American party means noise, alcohol, and a general excuse to act rude and slightly debauched in the name of "good cheer".  People have already started buying enough food to feed a developing village for a week.  Some are having dinners tonight.  Tomorrow the real feasting will occur.  Some people going to 3 or 4 feasts.

Then Friday following has become a day to consume yet even more as people flock to stores and fight to buy all the bait and switch deals.  I have never been to a store on "Black Friday" but I did go to one on Sunday after, last year.  Things were literally thrown around like a riot had occurred.  This is "celebrating".

And I'll have to go to some obligatory feast of my own (I'll only do one)...deciding which family group will feel most slighted if I don't go.  I'll see people I don't know and don't have anything in common with, other than some tenuous genetic connections.  I'll smile and be cordial and make polite excuses for not eating foods I can't eat and probably get sick from eating some things just to shut people up.

Christmas specials have already started in stores, on TV, everywhere telling me what I am supposed to do and feel and most having no concept of what the holiday really is...or rather no concept of what that means...I'm sure most actually know what it is about.

So now starts my least favorite time of year.  I wish I could just not participate at all.  The favorite holiday season of my life was the one I spent in Japan where most didn't know about my holidays and fewer cared.  I was able to keep them in my own way, sharing  peaceful and enjoyable time with my family and a few friends we shared our traditions with.  But unfortunately, here that is impossible.

I'll try not to be obviously negative so as not to ruin it for others...but maybe it's worth ruining.  Am I doing those I care for a disservice by not expressing what is hollow and wrong?

I have made certain stands, but they are to little avail against the tide of prescribed consumption and obligatory "cheer".

So if you see me through this season, give me a little nod that you understand.  I know I'm not alone.  And if you disagree, that's fine.  You keep it your way and leave me to keep it mine.  You've got the whole culture with you.  The least you could do is give me a little space to salvage what good I can scrounge out of it without judgement or pressure.

Roots

I have been reading another George MacDonald book.  Uncle George does not disappoint again.  This one, I've been putting off since it doesn't seem like something I'd like at first blush.  It's called the Vicar's Daughter, and it's described as a Victorian novel.  Hmmm.  Need I say more?

But as usual, when the time is right things fall into place and I went ahead to read it.  Also, per usual, I found that the stereotype of "Victorian" is far from the truth.  Certainly this book was written in the Victorian era.  As such it has a certain defined social code, etc.  But humans are human and I find all the fun, struggles, loves common to all people.  However, literary critic I am not, and so I won't belabor this.

What really has taken me is the thorough similarity of the characters with my own time and viewpoints.  I don't mean this to say I have an old-fashioned mindset.  I'm far from a traditionalist,and am not very sentimental.  But I grew up in a prosperous country on the teeter of decline, in a middle class family, right as the notions of an older generation were passing away from our culture.  I moved naturally from this to a countercultural worldview we call punk.  I grew up into a productive member of society with a family, though not shedding my ideals to do it.  This book focuses on just the same class of people in the same situation.  What I call punk, they call Bohemian, but the description is almost identical...obviously, not the appearance specifically, nor the music, etc.  But the ideals and the manifestations of those ideals are the same, even down to the shockingly reproachful clothes .

But even more than this is the similarity in faith.  While I had known my views were part of an unbroken chain of truth and truth-seekers extending back into prehistory, I had not known that it was so well documented and articulated in such a similar way.

Of course, I should not be surprised.  If Truth is Truth, it ought to manifest itself in very similar ways where conditions are similar.  And that is what I find here.  In fact, I've felt this once before, when reading Augustine.  At that time, I attributed it mostly to an above average translator whom I thought must have been able to make the ancient writing open to modern ears.  But now, I'm reading native English, close enough to my own dialect as to be totally intelligible in the writer's own words.  So I am forced to see what was obscured before.

In fact, the book sits so well with me that I'm finding it nearly a handbook for my place in life right now.  Things I have thought, said, done, wished for, are here presented in very nearly the exact same way more than a hundred years before.

I had previously blogged about uncanny similarities in MacDonald books.  But now I am certain that time has no meaning for those of us who live with eternity in view.  I do not doubt that Uncle George is presently aware of this very blog entry and my connection with his work.  For all I know, he may be communicating to me from his books, or we may share a spirit in some fashion.  Perhaps through the same mechanism, albeit a far more profane version of the connection between John the Baptist and Elijah.  Though this is more likely a metaphorical fancy than actual fact. Nevertheless, I shouldn't be surprised by this kind of connection amongst those who live in Christ.  Aren't we parts of one body?

Anyway, what I'm taking away from this book is uniquely mine, and too much to recount here.  But perhaps the greatest thing is that I now feel certainly confirmed in my brand of faith.  If it has existed for so long in so precisely the same fashion, I can safely put aside doubt.  I had feared it was my own personal religion built of my peculiar brand of rebellion and whimsy, well fortified with bricks of prooftext and the mortar of complex self deceptions.

Now I can safely stand out on it and believe I am not alone and not in error.  There have been, are, and will be those who are made like me, believe like me, and I am confident enough to cast my lot in with them for good or ill.

Thank you George.  And thank you God.  The former for being the instrument and the latter for being the wind that sounds it in answer to my prayers, even across the nonexistent gulfs of time and space.  When I meet you face to face, we will not in any way be meeting for the first time.