Christmas stands for quiet truths: love, faith, community and family

By David McElroy · December 24, 2016

In my dream of Christmas Yet to Come, I see a loving mother and I see our children. I see us in a church service together on a Christmas Eve.

I see bright and curious faces experiencing the wonder of something transcendent. I see two parents who love each other and are eager for their children to feel the wonder of something bigger than themselves — to feel the joy and love and connection of Christmas with people who know there is some mysterious power bigger than themselves, something which binds a community of people together through some wisp of spirit inside each heart.

I grew up in churches where the brain was more important than the heart. Nobody would have said it that way, but what mattered was doctrine and rational explanations, not experience or any powerful sense of wonder. We were vaguely disdainful of people who felt too much or expressed too much from the heart.

We quietly extinguished the transcendent from the sacred in most respects — and I believe we lost something important as a result.

I am far less certain of theology and doctrine today than when I was a confident 18-year-old planning to go into the ministry. I have more questions than answers now. I’m not willing to argue with anyone. I’m not willing to tell people exactly who God is and exactly what He wants.

I am simply more conscious than ever before that there is a Spirit who I have come to understand as God. I have become more and more conscious that there is a Spirit that binds all of us in ways I don’t understand. I know completely that love flows from that Spirit and changes anyone who really seeks it, but I’m not willing to tell you what that should look like in your life.

I read a story a couple of days ago in which a writer interviewed a popular evangelical pastor about what makes someone a Christian and what things someone must believe to call himself one. The Virgin Birth? The Resurrection? What else? Not too many years ago, I would have had strong doctrinal opinions about all the things the pastor discussed, but I find myself ambivalent about all of that today.

It’s not that I don’t believe objective truth exists. I do. I’m simply not arrogant enough to believe I have a handle on all of it and I no longer believe I’m required to take the word of anybody in particular about those things. I’m no longer bothered by any of that. At this point, I’m simply lost in the wonder of a shared transcendent experience, even if we view it in different ways and apply different language to it.

When I was young, those of us who were regular “church mice” made fun of the people who showed up only at Christmas and Easter. We were disdainful of the fact that attendance would swell to something like two or three times its normal size on those days. We thought they shouldn’t bother showing up if that’s all they could do. (We probably sounded pretty arrogant and prideful.)

Today, I understand that a lot of people are turned off by the nature of what the modern church has become, but they still desperately want to feel connected to community and love and faith and family in a way they find only in a religious service. And I now have enough empathy for people who are searching for the truth to accept whatever practices work for them, whether I see things their way or not. Outside of my own family, it’s really none of my business.

I want my future children to experience the connection of sharing something transcendent, whether they understand it at first or not. I want them to have parents who talk with them openly about why God matters and about how few answers we’re really certain about. I don’t want to dictate what they believe or what their eventual spiritual practices are. I simply want them exposed to the love and connection that come from this shared faith experience, not just at Christmas, but especially at such a time.

When I attend a Christmas Eve service later tonight, it won’t be for the pastor to teach me anything I don’t already know. It won’t be to have doctrine poured into me or to watch an entertaining show.

I will go looking for connection with other Christians who also experience the wonder of knowing God — not all the time, but enough to be certain He is real. I will go looking for a love to fill my heart and make me feel connected once more to people who I might otherwise pass on the street without a second glance.

I want and need the things I experience on such a night and in such a service. I need to feel love, faith, community and family. (And remember that family is frequently about who you choose to be in your life, not about who you grew up with.)

As I attend the Christmas Eve service in just a little while, I will slip in alone and hope to feel connection. But in my heart, I will be seeing that dream of Christmas Yet to Come. In my mind’s eye, I will see myself there with a dearly loved wife and dearly loved children.

For Christmas, I want love and connection, both for now and for many years yet to come. In the meantime, I’ll simply have faith that the Christmas Yet to Come which seems so strong in my mind is on its way.

Merry Christmas, everyone. There is powerful magic in this wonderful season.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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