The great longing and why everyone, even the cynics, grinches, and scrooges want to celebrate Christmas (even if they won't admit it to themselves)

I was just perusing lists of 'best' and 'worst' Christmas songs, and strangely the same songs seemed to be on both lists, depending who the lister was!  Which put me in mind of an article a few weeks ago about Christmas music, which I can't now find otherwise I'd link to it, that was an intriguing reflection by the author on his former disgust of the secular world and their determination to make off with an obviously Christian holiday and the eventual softening of his heart towards the lost, wandering, and lonely.  Here's an article that beautifully captures that very longing felt by everyone born of woman.  Of course none of the songs on those lists were even remotely Christian and barely dealt with any of the 'religious' trappings of the season, but I find it fascinating that we'd put so much effort into creating a secular hymnal for this particular season.  Nobody does that for Easter.  Why Christmas?  What is it about this babe in the manger two millennia ago that has we moderns trying desperately to cook up something just as wonderful but centered in the materialistic world?

Ugly Christmas sweaters, Mariah Carrie, swanky office parties, Hallmark movie marathons, a pantheon of pop culture gods from the Grinch to Rudolph and Frosty, secular carols by the truckload, the school concerts brimming with tunes about snow and bells, over the top cooking, houses lit up like a runway, gifts galore, but nothing seems to satisfy.  Our hyped up secular version of 'peace on earth, goodwill towards men,' feels more like a dinner of cotton candy and Mountain Dew while having to force yourself to smile while putting up with your least favorite great aunt as she talks about her cat for three hours: fake, shallow, all glitz and no glory.  There's no room for grief, sorrow, frustration, impatience, depression, financial trouble, loneliness, physical or mental health issues, loss, disappointment, no wonder everybody sort of secretly loathes this season as well as longs for the fulfillment of all its promises.

But that's only the manmade monster that isn't anything near human, wherein you'll get fired if you don't force enough holiday cheer whilst out in public, rather the real story of Christmas is raw, brutal, cold, lonely, despairing, shameful, and dark, wherein finally a long sought light shineth and lo, there is hope upon the earth.  That's why I love the old hymns, they don't flirt with Santa or moan over an old fling but rather marvel at the wonder of God indwelling flesh, living amongst us, and bringing true Peace upon the earth.  There's room at the manger for death, sorrow, disease, fear, doubt, grief, poverty and every ill that mars creation and He is the cure to them all.  Christmas is big enough for your sorrow, for it hails the advent of the One Who has borne them.  One of my favorite choruses out of the Messiah is the passage out of Isaiah wherein in, 'surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.'  Come real, come broken, no flash or glitter or false joy required, and He shall give you Peace.

The longing is real and so is the Answer, but not liking the answer, the world desires to brew its own cure, which only makes that longing worse, as we feel somehow guilty in not being frivolously jolly this time of year, but you don't have to drink that strange patent medicine or indulge in faux guilt, rather be real, be broken, and seek the wisdom and wonder and glory of ages past and those yet to come.  Have an O Holy Night instead of a Holly Jolly Christmas, celebrate a Silent Night rather than rock around the Christmas tree, instead of crooning Blue Christmas remember what happened in that Little Town of Bethlehem.  Hark the Herald Angels Sing instead of Mariah Carrie or Nat King Cole.  Chestnuts and silver bells and reindeer or the ideal fling aren't going to bring the peace they promise, only the Prince of Peace can do that

There's nothing wrong with all the secular seasonal fun, but it is like cold, hungry kids tired of playing in the snow looking in at the lamplit windows and pretending they are warm and fed and surrounded by love when still outside in the lonely dark and cold.  Open the door child, it isn't locked, step into the Light, truly find Home this Christmas and everyday thereafter!

Hopeless when it comes to Romantics?

 After being held captive by a villainous virus and confined to her comfy chair for weeks on end, the recumbent heroine sought refuge in her local library's ebook empire, and falling prey to extreme boredom and mental fatigue (pronounced fat-ti-gue), she finally gave in and perused a significant number of works vaguely classified as 'christian romance novels,' and her reaction can only be described as curious indeed.

I read a little Georgette Heyer some years back, complaining afterwards that they were all the same book, just with the hero having different colored hair and driving a different number of horses and the heroine having a variable number of siblings to differentiate them.  I also had several bad experiences with Jane Austen spin-off novels, expecting such sequels to be as chaste and classy as Miss Austen herself, oops!  But I had run out of things to read when influenza decided we go on whirlwind courtship, and being barely cognizant, wasn't up for my usual preference for tales like Les Mis, Tale of Two Cities, or anything Austen or Chesterton, I didn't have the mental energy to think so I thought a little Christian romance might be just the thing to wile away the hours, forget my discomfort, and explore a rather foreign genre.  Secular romance novels are downright trashy and nothing I even dare explore.  But apparently modern Christian romance, at least from the several authors I sampled, isn't all that different from Georgette Heyer or anything offered on a classic Hallmark playlist, save perhaps in the time it is set.

The books and stories weren't bad, they just weren't good, being rather boring, predictable, insipid, and had very little of either romance or true Christian faith.  Strangely, any of the classic novels listed above are far more romantic and Christian than anything of modern make I have yet waded through though hardly being classified as Christian romance!  C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are the most modern authors I have found to be both competent storytellers and truly Christian writers.  This modern fluff has all the theological depth of a Joel Olsteen greeting card and the stories all the intrigue of a Hallmark Christmas special or the nineteenth Spiderman movie in as many years.  Is that all modern Americans expect from either faith or literature or even romance?  I knew our country was in hot water but it seems to be willingly drowning in an inch deep pool of insipidity if what I sampled was considered 'good' reading or theology!  Just because something is 'clean' doesn't make it good.  And just because you throw in a few christian fortune cookie one-liners like 'God directs your path' and "He'll turn your problems into blessings,' doesn't a christian text make.  But I guess if you are living that sort of shallow faith or insipid interpersonal relationships or have never delved into serious literature, thinking anything more daunting than the latest Marvel remake is beyond your intellectual abilities, I shouldn't be surprised people love this sort of thing.

Nobody wants to think, especially about their own lives, relationships, and the true meaning of life, the universe and everything, that's why we have an answer (42) but we still can't comprehend what the question is.  It is so much easier to type something into google and accept the first line of text that pops up as the ultimate answer to the pertinent question rather than to ask is it true, is it from a reliable source, what does it actually mean, is it biased, or do I need to delve deeper into this issue?  You wouldn't believe all the people that walk into my office and tell me what is wrong with their pet and what treatment they expect, rather than letting me do my job and figure it out and do what the pet actually needs, everybody is an expert nowadays in everything except the actual experts!  They'd happily take my advice on rewiring their house or replacing the transmission in their car (things I know nothing about but I'm sure YouTube would love to advise me) but when I don't want to treat their dog for distemper (not that there is one) when it is obvious it has liver cancer, well what do I know?

C.S. Lewis got it right when he said, "the world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature."  A vibrant Christian faith will shine through any well written tale even if that book isn't overtly Christian, books like Pride and Prejudice, Lord of the Rings, Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, never (or only rarely or in passing) mention "churchy" stuff but glimmer and gleam with a Christian worldview and doctrine, hope, faith, purpose, and love without ever being preachy or boring, which those modern romance novels tended to be even if they mentioned God a mere half dozen times in the whole tale.  Where is the unrelenting, unremitting, unconquerable Love that drove God to become Man and die in our stead?  Where is Darcy throwing pride to the wind to save the woman who may never return his affections?  Where is Jean val Jean, the hardened, bitter criminal cruelly wronged by society and fate, yet offering forgiveness and kindness though it may doom him?  Where is the faithful Sam that would follow his master into the fires of hell with no hope of rescue or return, but determined to do what is right?  Where is one man willing to die in place of another to spare the sorrow of the woman he loves but will never be his?

We moderns define romance as merely romantic love, but we are as ridiculous as Eowyn riding off to war, seeking relief via death in battle over conquering her disappointment because Aragorn will not look on her with a tender eye.  That is my one complaint about Tolkien, most of his heroines are rather sulky, which I suppose is why Rings of Power needs to portray Galadriel as some sort of Xena wanna-be, which is odd since she is the one strong female character that isn't moping around in the books over thwarted expectations.  But romance is so much more that romantic love, or rather lust as most modern writers have it, it is the very adventure and poetry of life, the substance that makes existence worth enduring, that turns the mundane into the miraculous: sunsets, old jokes, fuzzy blankets, snowball fights, good friends, a crackling hearth, candlelight, spying your first moose, new life, long goodbyes, Spring, the call of geese on the wind, snow days, toddler commentary, good books, gooey cookies and steaming hot chocolate, hearty stew on a bitter night, starlight over snowy fields...none of that requires a love interest, only a child like heart and a sense of wonder, real humility and a readiness to embrace whatever the Author of your own personal romance is going to throw at you.

Don't settle for meek as milk toast modern theology or romance or literature, delve into the old classics, be they books or the songs of the season, forget Santa Baby and actually look at the lyrics of O Come O Come Emmanuel, What Child is This, or Hark the Herald!  Maybe the reason I find modern books so insipid is because Man himself has become so in this world of easy information wherein true wisdom has become scarce.  Nobody wants to be offensive, but the Gospel is offensive, it defies our natural selfishness and challenges us to be better, to live a life of meaning and adventure and purpose, but we'd rather just be a pointless ball of atoms and energy floating along a meaningless but pleasant course until we vanish into oblivion, of no more consequence than any of the numerous stories I just read, as soon forgot as finished, nothing memorable or significant about any of them.  Now is the time to choose your own adventure!  Now there's a genre I should go back and explore as an adult, they were kind of fun as a kid but that's a whole other post!