Christmas

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Many of my friends will be surprised that I see the religious message of Christmas both true and relevant to these times.  While I have moved on from a traditional vocabulary to express the significance of religious truths, from the perspective of a naturalist pragmatism, I see the incarnation, God becoming “human,” as the light that shines on our future. 

Leaving aside, as I have said, a supernatural mode of speech, language very appropriate and necessary for much of the last 2,000 years, I find in this celebration the essential question of our time.  Is there a transcendent meaning to our long evolutionary development?  Does the growth of self-awareness and apprehension of a future, align our lives with the truth of the Cosmos?  Is the human “God-like?”

To express this belief as occurring in a specific place and at a specific moment of time is to identify a transcendent moment of awareness. We do not celebrate Christmas as much as we stand like the shepherds in awe and wonder at the breathtaking nature of the idea.

The hope that is given is the belief that life is more than a reproductive cycle, more than a fulfillment of our physical needs (and desires).  More than greed, more than envy, more than revenge, more than the satisfaction of the self. 

We dare to think of ourselves as more than the latest complex of biological function, energy appropriating cells.  Protein factories.  Self-replicating machinery. 

The “government will be upon his shoulders.”  We must act to preserve the earth, our place of birth, the base of our future.

And he shall be called “Wonderful Counselor.”  Our path forward is not aimless and unknowable. Our reason will guide us. Our imagination with sustain us.

“Mighty God.”  Our destination is truth, as we in our bonds can know it. 

“Everlasting Father.”  The Cosmos, vast as we know it is, unfathomable as it will ever be, is our natural born home.

“Prince of Peace.”  The way is not by conquest, not by acquisition, not by Lordly sovereignty.  By love and gentleness and great humility.  The way of Peace, always the awareness that the path is hard, our knowledge finite, our aspirations flawed and our future yet undetermined.