A Christmas Message (2021)

I don’t have a big, Quaker, theological post for Christmas this year (though I encourage you to look at Christmas posts from previous years). I have no Christmas-related written ministry to offer (at least, at the time of writing, that can always change unexpectedly). This year, I’m offering more of a personal message. Life, me, a year in review… well, we’ll see how it goes.

Recent history first. I went a bit quiet again, didn’t I? I won’t deny that any break is still harder for me to come back from, in terms of my mental health, weird (but apparently not unusual) topic-specific anxiety still holding me back a lot. The reason for the break, or at least a contributor to the length of it, is that I was actually physically ill again. Not my usual exacerbations of my balance problems or viral upper respiratory tract infections, either. No, shortly after my first in-person work since the pandemic started, I developed a chest infection. Bacterial. Possibly pneumonia, apparently, though that not confirmed, and if it was it was pretty mild (turns out there is such a thing as mild pneumonia, though such things are obviously relative). Either that or a pretty bad and tough-to-beat more conventional chest infection. I was laid out pretty badly, high fever, needed two lots of antibiotics to beat it (though the first lot broke the fever), and extremely low energy – mentally as well as physically – for a few weeks. I’m fine, now. My wife got a viral cough around the same time, so I suspect I brought home a viral lower respiratory bug and I got a secondary infection with it – it did take a little while for it to get productive in my case.

A Quaker Covid Christmas

Your latest Christmas Tree decoration?
(visualisation of SARS-CoV-2 virus by US CDC)

It’s Christmas time. It’s a pandemic. It seems to have quite a lot of people in something of a tizzy.

Our friends across the Atlantic have already negotiated this with their Thanksgiving holidays, when it is common – even traditional – for families to come together, even if they live far apart. Many families here in Britain are in the habit of doing the same at Christmas, and certainly families who do live near one another often get together in larger family gatherings than is their habit at other times of year. The fact it has become a secular holiday, as well as a sacred festival for most Christians, means that this extends over more of the population than one might think by looking at religious demographics.

To an awful lot of people, Christmas isn’t Christmas without household mixing. For the religiously observant, busy services on Christmas Eve bring many households into close proximity. For lots of people, religious or otherwise, Christmas is when family comes together, even if normally spread out. Students return to the family home for Christmas, and even those children who are grown and settled in new lives often do the same. Where the next generation has brought forth their own new generation, the older generation might be hosted by their children, and see their grandchildren. This is normal, expected even – to the extent that childless people who spend Christmas alone, even as a couple, are sometimes pitied at best, thought strange at worst. Charities put a lot of effort into making sure people who don’t want to spend Christmas alone – or who other people think oughtn’t to spend Christmas alone – don’t have to do so.

A Quaker Yule

Even thirty years ago, the word Yule would not have been completely foreign to English-speaking ears. After all, we've used the word Yuletide to refer to the Christmas period for some time. Indeed, the cognate jul exists as a modern word in the Scandinavian languages to refer to the Christian holiday of Christmas.

These days it's not unusual for people to be aware of the pre-Christian roots of the word, referring to a midwinter festival or holiday in the Germanic world. The exact practices among Germanic pre-Christians varied; while their languages and cultures, and indeed religion, shared common roots and themes, there was considerable cultural variation. We know, or at least think we know, of the dísablót and álfablót of the Norse, the public and private sacrifices that took place (as best we can tell, in some periods and some places) around the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. The first honoured, perhaps placated, the dísir, a range of female spirits and gods, and the Valkyries; the latter the elves, mythic and folkloric figures attributed a great range of impacts of daily life. As the names suggest, each of these was a blót, an act of ritual worship generally involving a sacrifice, generally of an animal (though the similarity of “blót” and “blood” is generally understood to be coincidental). Some sources and evidence indicate that there was also human sacrifice, though evidence that is not questionable generally points to this being exceptional, and generally associated with war.

So far, so much interesting (if hideously simplified for brevity) history. What does it have to do with the world (or society) today, and especially what does it have to do with Quakers? We are not, after all, Germanic pre-Christians.

Happy Christmas!

So, it is Christmas Day (in most of the world), and in case you've just browsed here for some light reading that fits the season, I've collected up links to my posts, both deliberate writing and written ministry, that relate to this festive season.

In A Quaker Christmas, I look at the Quaker testimony concerning times and seasons, how liberal Quakers do approach the holiday (in my experience), and a look at how we could retool the testimony to fit in with modern life and practice, and how the Religious Society of Friends is now constituted and situated.

In A Christmas Prayer, I share written ministry concerning this time of year. This one actually originally came to me during a Meeting for Worship, when I attended the mid-week afternoon MfW at my local Meeting.

In Modern Christmas and Equality, I look at some of the issues that came up in that ministry, and generally how the way Christmas is now done (at least in the English-speaking parts of the global economic north) interacts with ideas of equality.

In Everyone Can Draw Meaning From Christmas, I put the universalist, new-light-from-wherever-it-may-come, every-religion-has-something-to-teach treatment on Christmas itself, a look at what meaning the story of Christmas can have, spiritually, for those of any faith.

I also wish all of you a fond "Happy Christmas", or good wishes whatever celebration you may be partaking in at this time of year (it's a bit late to wish people a good Yule or Chanukah, but you get the idea). Thank you to all who've commented, here or elsewhere, and given that vital support to anyone writing - the knowledge that people are reading, and thinking & discussing. An especial thanks to those who've shown their appreciation, support and confidence by backing my Patreon. Expect to hear more from me before the New Year!

Everyone Can Draw Meaning From Christmas

The Adoration of the Shepherds, Gerard van Honthorst

As explored in my pantheons and archetypes series (which I hope to return to in the new year, when I decide which archetype to look at next), I very much believe that all Quakers, whatever their theological tendencies, can benefit from consideration of the ideas and stories from different faiths and traditions. When I say this, I don't just mean that Christian and non-theist Friends should look at ancient pagan traditions – I also mean that non-Christians should look at Christian traditions and stories. This time of year is a great opportunity to give an example of this, how the stories of Christmas can be spiritually meaningful to anyone, regardless of the extent to which they believe in them.

It's really quite a story, when you think about it. We're going to get into a bit of history for this, and I'm no expert on this stuff, so I've probably gotten some stuff subtly (or horribly) wrong, but the general sense should be accurate enough. The context is of a faith community and society that is living under a fair degree of repression, albeit sporadic, by a foreign power – and that has a history of oppression and forced migration present in both their written and oral histories. That foreign power, Rome, is habitually tolerant of the religious preferences of their subject and client populations, within certain limitations. One of the absolute limits was human sacrifice, which is not relevant here, but one of the practical limits was that the religion had to be somehow compatible with the Roman state religion. Monotheistic cultures could be okay, as they might acknowledge the validity of other deities while cleaving strongly to their own. The Jewish faith, however, resisted the idolatry they saw in even acknowledging other faiths, and while the Roman habit would be to let them have their faith, they found that exclusivity uncomfortable.

Modern Christmas and Equality

The kitten is not impressed by Christmas excess.

As I noted in my recent post on Quakers and Christmas, albeit in passing, the way we “do Christmas” in this country (and in some others) raises profound concerns regarding equality – particularly regarding economic inequality. This is something that I would expect to be of deep concern to Quakers, considering our long-standing testimony to equality and general concern for the well-being of our fellow people; it is also something that I think should be of concern for others that support such ideals of equality and social justice, from whatever source that conviction arises. It also leads to significant environmental impacts, but for now I'm concerned with the human impact of consumer culture – the environmental side of things can wait for another post.

A Christmas Prayer

My mind is drawn, today, to those who face particular difficulties at this time of year.

I think of those who are impoverished, struggling to meet the cultural expectations of how one is supposed to “do Christmas”.

I think of those who are bereaved, and going through Christmas without a loved one.

I think of those of fragile mental health, or who are physically limited, coping with the social expectations that go with this season.

I hold all these people in the Light, and hope that they may know comfort from the Spirit, however they understand it.

Written December 2017

A Quaker Christmas

As I described in my previous post regarding Halloween, Quakers have a traditional testimony concerning times and seasons, that different days and different times of the year not have liturgical significance. However, as I also set out in that post, we can see value and benefit of festivals without ascribing them inherent religious significance.

In this post, I shall be applying the same approach to Christmas, and all of the things that go with it, both liturgically and culturally – advent, epiphany, even the secular new year celebration.