CHRISMUKKAH

It used to be a simpler time.

Understand, I’m not being nostalgic. I don’t feel a pang for an age gone by, or for those halcyon days of my pre-pubescence. On the contrary, I have little to no interest in rattling on about the ways things used to be (for some strange reason, no matter who you hear it from, those times always seem to be described as kinder, gentler, more… Republican).

It’s just that I remember the winters of my childhood, and I’m telling you: Snow blanketed the ground all of the time. From November through till April, there were whole heaps of the stuff—so much, that friends and I were able to shovel it back behind my parent’s house, right up to the wall of the garage, and create piles so high, they would reach up to the lip of the roof. Things wouldn’t really work until the pile was large, but once it was? We’d climb out of my bedroom window, crawl out onto the edge of the roof, and then jump.

It seemed like a bright idea at the time.

In any case, winter marked the coming of the holiday season, and when I was a kid? Winters would kick off in what was a fairly simple and relatively consistent process:
1. The snow would fall.
2. The carols would play.
3. The stories would be told.

By stories, of course, I’m not referring to The Night Before Christmas, but rather to the biblical tales of three wise men meandering in the desert, or of the shepherds gathered in the fields, ostensibly tending to their flocks. Looking back on it now, even those stories feel altogether sanitized, and just a bit too saccharine-sweet.

What’s to say those shepherds weren’t on a bender, and that, in truth, the wise men were trafficking mass quantities of “gold”, “frankincense” and “myrrh”, in the hopes of smuggling the stuff across some long-forgotten border? Whatever. If people want to insist that those shepherds were all about the livestock, and that these supposedly “wise” men were just out there running errands for King Herod, I’ll buy it. (Frankly, I don’t care enough to argue. Besides, I’m no Dan Brown.)

The point is you’d get the snow, and then the carols, and then the stories of the shepherds who were knocked off their rockers and, like, totally freaked out by the angel of the Lord.

This was how you knew. Christmas was right around the corner.

Nowadays, the burning of fossil fuels has left us a bit short on the snow, and every low-rent pop star can drop a Christmas album. As for the rest? The standard procedure has been usurped. It has been cast aside and dutifully replaced by the ubiquitous Starbucks holiday cup.

I mean, it’s not Christmas until that little, red cup works everybody into a frenzy, and drives us all to buy more in the way of “a tall, soy, one-pump, half-caff, white mocha with no whip.” And it’s not just the cups. Starbucks has a whole holiday agenda, which they gladly foist onto global consumers each and every year. You could be in Coral Gables, Florida and yet the minions of Howard Schultz will have you believing that there’s a veritable chill in the air.

Not everybody believes in Jesus Christ, and by no means is the holiday season specific to Christians. There is Hanukkah and Kwanza. Buddhists celebrate Bodhi Day, and the followers of Islam mark the Day of Ashura. With the winter’s solstice falling on December 21st, there’s no telling what the Druids might have gotten up to.

People will celebrate whatever way they choose, but this used to be a season of meaning. It was a time to believe in something, not to buy something.

Christmas, for one, came about due to the birth of Jesus Christ. It had nothing to do with quilted hoodies from the Gap.

The thought occurred to me, though. This may finally be the year when the heavens end up with the last laugh. I mean, the financial system is sputtering. The stock market is pitching a fit. American consumers are spending less, and the retail sector is certain to take a hit.

But if Starbucks can only make a cool enough coffee cup, then by rights... I’m thinking Jesus can be credited with saving the economy.

Otherwise, we are all in for one fucking long winter’s nap.

(Oy vey.)

LOVE IS LOVE

I’ve taken pains not to make this blog overtly political, but if I’m being honest? If I’m to be open and forthright about the ways in which I feel and also think, then it is rightfully time to loose a few boundaries.

Let’s talk about Proposition 8.

In last Tuesday’s election, citizens in the state of California passed a resolution that overturned existing statutes, making it against the law and unconstitutional for same-sex couples to marry. In effect, they took what was a legal right and made it something criminal. All of this, because a majority of people in the state of California felt they were entitled—that it was their responsibility, even—to tell other people how it is that they should love.

I am flummoxed. I am crestfallen. I just don’t understand.

The connotations of “love” are abundant, to be sure, but let’s look to the gist of it, to the meanings and interpretations of the word that have long been accepted throughout the world. Dating back to the times of Shakespeare and beyond, to be in love has been to feel affection for another, to be devoted to someone, to care for them, to worship and adore that person.

That is it. That is all.

What part of love is dependent on nearly 53% of California’s population coming together to agree that one’s particular brand of adoration is just like theirs, and therefore “okay”?

I am befuddled. Gobsmacked, even. Again, I just don’t get it.

There is beauty in this idea called America, in that we’re not always quick to get things right. But we keep trying. Our founding fathers had the audacity to bother with fractions, and now, thank God, we have the audacity of hope. Our President-elect is a person possessed of what the columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff called a “fertile mind”. Oh, and he just so happens to be African American.

But what if he were gay?

Would it honestly matter, even one little bit?

There are pundits and politicians aplenty, and on both sides of the aisle, who have endeavored to make an argument similar to the one here. Nearly every one has done a far better job of this than I have, but then again, it wasn’t my intention to add to this debate with new insights, or to unearth additional layers of meaning. I’m not harboring any illusions, here. I'm just telling you what I think and how I feel.

To put it simply, I believe that love is love.

In the political cycle that has just ended, the debate over Proposition 8 was merely one of many. Nearly every one offered plenty in the way of nuance, and there were no easy answers. So, why does this outcome seem so blatantly erroneous?

Maybe it comes down to this: As much as I might like to find that girl who makes me weak in the knees, I know that it isn’t easy. (I suppose it could be the person who commented on my last posting, except that she did so anonymously. In any case, I hear she’s quite a catch.) I’ve got special treatment on my side, like a resolution newly passed in the state of California, and yet it doesn’t place me any closer to walking down the aisle.

Meanwhile, we have friends and neighbors, family and loved ones who are in committed, caring relationships. They want the very same things that I would hope to find with you. The only difference? They are homosexuals, and so some lame-ass law says that they can’t have them.

Along with more than 47% of Californian voters, I am calling bullshit.