The thrill of hope

The weary world rejoices

By James Fullmer
From the December 2006 Print Edition

More than anything else, this past year has been a bit troubling.

I don’t mean because the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. Sure, I’m a Republican, and sure, I wish the Republicans were still in charge, but at the end of the day our political system worked, and the party of the other half of our fellow citizens is now in power. It could be a lot worse.

And I don’t mean because Barry Bonds passed Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list. It was painful to see, but it wasn’t the end of the world. (I will revise that last statement if by some contravention of justice he passes Hank Aaron for first place. For now, though, life goes on.)

No, by troubling I mean that every time you opened up a newspaper, flipped to a news channel, or browsed the Drudge Report, you couldn’t help but have a little part of your faith in humanity die.

I first started ruminating on this over the summer, when gas prices were steadily rising and talk radio was buzzing with speculation over whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was planning to nuke the West in honor of the coming of the Twelfth Imam. There was a general unease in the air, an unsettled feeling somewhere in your gut that gave you the notion that the whole world was headed to some sudden, awful, inexorable climax.

The world’s still here of course, which is more than can be said for the Twelfth Imam, and with gas prices back on the decline that feeling of unease has slightly subsided.

But at the end of the year, when we look back, there’s so much that we see that’s wrong with the world. John Mark Karr and Mark Foley reminded us of the sick perversion humans are capable of. Ted Haggard showed us that even the most seemingly moral among us are not immune to temptation and weakness. Britney Spears and Kevin Federline plumbed the depths of marital iniquity, for the entire world to see.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians, both Lebanese and Israelis, and emboldened the terrorist group responsible for most of those deaths. Kim Jong Il proved to the world that he now can back up his homicidal megalomania with probable tests of the most terrible weapon of all. And American soldiers continue to fight and die in the Middle East to protect our country from those who would try to destroy it.

Closer to home, UC Berkeley saw a student die from a drug overdose, a professor die by his own hand just hours after giving a lecture, and a spate of violent crime on the south side of the campus.

With so much pain and sorrow out there, it’s hard to look at the world and not feel sad. But somehow, Christmas always seems to make things a little brighter. Maybe it’s because of the presents, or because finals are over, or because the Peppermint Mocha is once again being served at your local Starbucks. These are all possibilities. But I think the real answer lies somewhere deeper.

So this Christmastime, I want to look back to the origins of our holiday. It isn’t my intention to proselytize — the Patriot, like all of America, is made up of people of many different religions and people of no religion, and I can’t imagine I would be writing for too much longer if I started evangelizing. You may not believe that the story of what happened 2000 years ago in a stable in Bethlehem is true, and that’s fine. It’s a beautiful story regardless, one worth telling, and one that we all need to hear. So, please indulge me while I pontificate on it.

Most everyone knows that Christmas, all pre-Christian pagan origins aside, is meant to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. Consider what the coming of the Messiah meant, to those who believed in him: the world they knew, a world of oppression, injustice, and sorrow, would soon give way to a better world where the merciful would be shown mercy, the mourners would be comforted, and righteous would live in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the unrighteous weren’t forgotten; whatever evil they had done could be erased by heartfelt repentance and faith.

I think the lyrics to "O Holy Night" capture this idea best. "The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices" — that’s what Christmas was about in the manger and that’s what it’s about today. It’s about having the faith not to give up on hope, even when it seems like there are no other options.

And even though it may not be explicit, we see this pervading in all of the best Christmas stories. Think of Love Actually, where in the midst of loss and betrayal, the many protagonists are all able to find love in some form or another. Or It’s a Wonderful Life, where George Bailey, on the verge of suicide finally sees his good deeds recognized and paying off for himself and his community. Or even A Christmas Carol, where the old sinner Ebenezer Scrooge sees the light and changes his ways. There are many different manifestations of the Christmas spirit, but it all points to a baby in a stable who came to save the world from itself.

We all have our own Christmas stories. Sure, I remember the presents I got, but what I remember most is all of those Christmas afternoons when a game of catch with a new football or Frisbee brought the family closer together. There were all those Christmas Eves too: the time my older brother put our last-minute gift shopping on hold to pick up some stranded kids we didn’t even know and drove them ten miles to their home (something I ardently opposed at the time but came to appreciate as I got older); the time when my friend and I mended our broken relationship when I showed up at her door in the pouring rain and discovered that we’d both gotten gifts for each other; my freshman year of college, when my best friend and I drove around all night and played Santa Claus, delivering gifts to all of the friends we hadn’t seen all semester. Yes, there were presents involved, but that’s not quite the point.

Why all this waxing nostalgic? Memories like the ones I mentioned can happen any time, but Christmas seems to bring more than its share. There’s something important about Christmas, something that’s lost when it’s reduced to a holiday like any other. These days, we go to "Winterfest" at the dining commons before heading home for "Winter Break," and somewhere in between we lose our sense of what’s truly important here.

At my job the other day, a coworker turned on Christmas music and immediately someone else suggested changing the channel, so as not to offend people who don’t celebrate Christmas. This is the driving sentiment behind the increased secularization of Christmas, and though well-meaning, it is incredibly pernicious.

The late and great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once described the difference between conservatives and liberals on the issue of the relative importance of culture and politics. "The central conservative truth," he said, "is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

I’m not going to go so far as Bill O’Reilly or Jerry Falwell to say that there’s a war being waged on Christmas or Christians, but there are certainly those who would use the political process to "change a culture and save it from itself" all in the name of tolerance and openmindedness. But what exactly about Christmas requires our society to be saved from it?

You don’t have to believe in Jesus Christ to celebrate Christmas. If you believe it’s just a nice story, then celebrate it as a story — a wonderful story, a story of peace and hope that says something good about the species (that’s us) that came up with it. Have faith in the future and love your neighbor. Is it really too offensive to celebrate a holiday that asks us to do that?

Eventually, if we’re not careful, our society is going to rid itself of all that is good in a quixotic and misguided quest for politically correct perfection. But when you take away things like Christmas, you take away a lot of our hope. And when you take away our hope, we’re left with the discouragement that our imperfect world brings us. And how can we ever change the world for the better without the hope that gets us past that disappointment?

Every year, on New Year’s Eve, two things happen. First, if we’re lucky, at midnight we kiss someone special. Second, we resolve that in some way the coming year will be better than the going one. We can make that resolution, and often see it come true in spite of our past experience of failure or pain because Christmastime is the season of hope. And it’s that hope, that special hope that only comes at Christmas that gives us the courage to face a new year.

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