Besides mid-autumn, the liturgical season of Advent is my favorite: I am partial to the mysterious darkness and unexpected mists that arise on the wetlands behind our house. I revel in the candles within our home and the lights that appear spontaneously overnight throughout the wider community. And it feels as if my soul is slowly stretching out within me to make space for the small surprises of the season - call them signs of the incarnation - like finding a Savior in the straw or celebrating a God who chooses to join us as a powerless infant.Beyond the shadow of a doubt, my Advent spirituality has been shaped and guided by Gertrude Mueller-Nelson - especially her masterwork, To Dance with God. Take her commitment to reclaiming the blessing of St. Nicholas during this season. She rejects our popular culture's obsession with conspicuous consumption in favor of the older wisdom of sharing a gift in secret with another simply to evoke joy.
I’ve never done a St. Nicholas ritual that hasn’t fed me back, because somehow or another you enter into that place of holy play. You prepare something, you bake some cookies, you emboss them with an image of a holy man, and you sneak around, in my case, here at the church where I work, you put one in everybody’s box, and you say nothing. And everybody’s going around grinning and munching on their cookie knowing very well that they must not ask where it came from. There’s a child in us all, and if that childlike thing isn’t nourished and taken care of, we won’t become as little children, we won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. (http://www.catholicdigest.com/faith/200611-01gertrud-mueller-nelson-writer-artist-mother/)
Not surprisingly, this foundational truth has evaporated from contemporary Christian culture. As I look backwards, there has been a steady devolution of trust and hope in the American church that has been replaced by cynical materialism. Not only do we whine for immediate physical gratification - Uber now delivers fast food Christmas treats to your home address so you don't even have to get inside your car - but we act like our whims should be treated like human rights. The lowest common denominator in popular culture has now fully replaced the counter cultural vision of Advent in Christianity. Over the Thanksgiving weekend this struck me when the troops from Brooklyn joined us for a feast. After supper, we watched the old stand-by: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" that first aired on CBS 54 years ago. Seeing it in 2019 brought three reactions to the surface.
+ First, Schultz et al were already lamenting the commercialization of Christmas in 1965 - our crass materialism and rampant greed were becoming normative - a trend that has only grown more virulent over time. Indeed, the show's critique feels innocent and naive in this era of Trumpian glitz and sleaze.
+ Second, the jazz score by Vince Guaraldi and his band mates continues to set the standard for interpreting Christmas music in popular music. His original compositions have stood the test of time - "Skating" and "Linus and Lucy" are true winners - and his reworking of standards like, "O Tannebaum," evoke the Advent spirituality of waiting better than most sermons.
+ And third, the show's closing with its explicitly Christian message is wildly inappropriate for 21st century mass media even as it remains touching for believers. I am not one to advocate erasing the Christian story from popular culture. It can be shared in a broadly inclusive manner that is culturally sensitive to other spiritual and cultural traditions. I think of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" as one early example. So let's be real and call out the manufactured "war on Xmas" by FOX News as total bullshit.
Nevertheless, as I watched the close of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" again this year, its working assumption that the Christian story is culturally normative was unsettling. Its arrogance did not honor reality 50 years ago and can no longer masquerade as such in 2019. At the same time, I am still moved to tears when Linus answers Charlie Brown's lament: "Doesn't anyone know what Christmas is all about?"
This paradox I feel is puzzling. I support restricting the broadcast of pop culture programs that assumes hegemony. The Disney Channel's decision to keep "Song of the South" from circulation is spot on. At the same time I wonder if there is a way to show some of the best depictions of our respective spiritual traditions in pop culture? It would be a challenge, I understand, but what would it take for a network or cable station to run a mini-series during December that not only included modest intros and post scripts to shows like Charlie Brown, but also programs like the "Brothers and Sisters" Hanukkah show? What would it take to offer a week called a Festival of Faiths? (See the Forward's helpful summary here: https://forward.com/schmooze/357522/8-tv-shows-that-get-hanukkah-just-right/. This list offers some thoughts about breaking down Muslim stereotypes, too: https://thewhisp.mommyish.com/entertainment
/muslim-characters-movies-tv-flipped-stereotypes/12/)
Which brings me back to Advent and Gertrud Mueller-Nelson. Within a Christian context, I like the way she has nourished an alternative to the cultural dominance of avarice in her reinterpretation of Santa Claus.
I just couldn’t cozy up to America’s Santa Claus where you go with your I WANT list and beg for and expect everything you want. I needed to clean that image up and go back to the original archetype of a benevolent Father figure who teaches us how to GIVE as well as receive. He frames Advent for us and points to THE GIFT who is coming. He teaches us how to step over our hungry egos and give gifts without an ego attached. To give, as he did, in secret. To give as God gives. I love the sacramentality of ordinary things—things we use or see or find in our every-day lives. It’s just not that fancy! It’s simple things given in ceremony….
+ First, Schultz et al were already lamenting the commercialization of Christmas in 1965 - our crass materialism and rampant greed were becoming normative - a trend that has only grown more virulent over time. Indeed, the show's critique feels innocent and naive in this era of Trumpian glitz and sleaze.
+ Second, the jazz score by Vince Guaraldi and his band mates continues to set the standard for interpreting Christmas music in popular music. His original compositions have stood the test of time - "Skating" and "Linus and Lucy" are true winners - and his reworking of standards like, "O Tannebaum," evoke the Advent spirituality of waiting better than most sermons.
+ And third, the show's closing with its explicitly Christian message is wildly inappropriate for 21st century mass media even as it remains touching for believers. I am not one to advocate erasing the Christian story from popular culture. It can be shared in a broadly inclusive manner that is culturally sensitive to other spiritual and cultural traditions. I think of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" as one early example. So let's be real and call out the manufactured "war on Xmas" by FOX News as total bullshit.
Nevertheless, as I watched the close of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" again this year, its working assumption that the Christian story is culturally normative was unsettling. Its arrogance did not honor reality 50 years ago and can no longer masquerade as such in 2019. At the same time, I am still moved to tears when Linus answers Charlie Brown's lament: "Doesn't anyone know what Christmas is all about?"
This paradox I feel is puzzling. I support restricting the broadcast of pop culture programs that assumes hegemony. The Disney Channel's decision to keep "Song of the South" from circulation is spot on. At the same time I wonder if there is a way to show some of the best depictions of our respective spiritual traditions in pop culture? It would be a challenge, I understand, but what would it take for a network or cable station to run a mini-series during December that not only included modest intros and post scripts to shows like Charlie Brown, but also programs like the "Brothers and Sisters" Hanukkah show? What would it take to offer a week called a Festival of Faiths? (See the Forward's helpful summary here: https://forward.com/schmooze/357522/8-tv-shows-that-get-hanukkah-just-right/. This list offers some thoughts about breaking down Muslim stereotypes, too: https://thewhisp.mommyish.com/entertainment
Which brings me back to Advent and Gertrud Mueller-Nelson. Within a Christian context, I like the way she has nourished an alternative to the cultural dominance of avarice in her reinterpretation of Santa Claus.
I just couldn’t cozy up to America’s Santa Claus where you go with your I WANT list and beg for and expect everything you want. I needed to clean that image up and go back to the original archetype of a benevolent Father figure who teaches us how to GIVE as well as receive. He frames Advent for us and points to THE GIFT who is coming. He teaches us how to step over our hungry egos and give gifts without an ego attached. To give, as he did, in secret. To give as God gives. I love the sacramentality of ordinary things—things we use or see or find in our every-day lives. It’s just not that fancy! It’s simple things given in ceremony….
What does your own ancestry have to offer you that echoes your history and identity? Foods? Drinks? Stories? Songs? Decorations? What about the neighborhood you live in? Does it have an ethnic identity? Does what you do, lift up the family? Does it bear repeating year after year? Does it underscore the mystery that lies deep in what you are celebrating? Or is it tinny? Is it a commercial trick that is awkwardly pasted into your household? That Elf on the Shelf? You want to teach your children that life is a police state? Or that God’s omniscience is like that elf’s? We modern folk replaced the pointed mitre of the noble Bishop Nicholas with a pointed elf’s cap! We took away his noble and ancient robes and gave him a snow suit? We don’t know where heaven is so we lodge him in the North Pole. He is not attended by the intuitive angels we cannot see—but by elves?
Onward we move in Advent Two practicing patience intentionally:
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach a change of heart and the way of healing and hope: Give us grace to heed their warning and turn away from our brokenness, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you you and the Holy Spirit, united in love, now and forever. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer revised)
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