The paradox of the Incarnation is not just for the very young…
“Great is the mystery of the gifts! For this visible infant, who seems so young, who needs swaddling clothes for His body, who in the substance which we see is newly born, is the Eternal Son, as it is written, the Son who is the Maker of all, the Son who binds together in the swathing-bands of His assisting power the whole creation which would otherwise be dissolved.”
Random thought for the Christmas Alliance: Christmas is not for children. Oh, that’s one of the meme-themes we start hearing around this time of year, but by virtue of its categorical nature, it is simply false.
“Angel trees” for children in needy families, “toy drives” for the same purpose, MASSIVE pushes by toy sellers, Christmas programs featuring child after talentless child (or children in whom the talent bug has been well and truly squashed by teaching that doesn’t help them develop their talents but instead “clelebrates” incompetence**, blah, blah, blah.
Sometimes I/m tempted to think the spread of that meme is purposed to trivialize Christmas, but nah, it’s just a result of the general dumbing down of society. Yes, Christmas is for children, but it’s not just for children—or even “the child in all of us” as some would have it.
No. Christmas is for everyone, but especially for adults. And I don’t mean chronological adults who are still refusing to grow up (“grups”?). I mean people who see behind the tinsel and wrapping paper and gimme, gimme, gimme spirit of contemporary commercial “Christmas” to the wonder of the paradoxical Incarnation. See it and realize that giving of themselves is the only way to honor that Incarnation, that first giant step in the greatest gift given.
So, for those of y’all who are adults and do see behind the curtain of tinsel, wrapping paper and gimme spirit to the Incarnation all of that strives to hide, here’s a suggestion for some gifts to give in the season of Advent and Christmas:
Give the present of your presence. really be WITH your family and friends. Listen to them and respond to their needs, desires, hopes and aspirations. be there in that same sense with anyone who is trapped on the other side of the curtain of tinsel and wrapping paper and gimme, gimme, gimme spirit of contemporary commercial “Christmas”—listen to them and respond with a revelation of the Incarnation, in large part by responding as well as you can to their needs, desires, hopes and aspirations.
And always, always do what you can to let the children you meet, no matter what their age, see a bit of the true wonder of Christmas hidden behind the curtain of their quotidian lives: the paradoxical wonder of the Incarnation.
Here’s where you start:
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. —Philippians 2:5–11
*Note: this is one portion of Nestorius’ writings concerning the Incarnation later declared not heretical by Cyril, in 433 A.D. The early church was so very serious about clear teaching, that even when recognizing that Nestorius’ intend—and much of his writing/preaching/teaching—was good, his confusing stance on the Incarnation, where he seemed to contradict the statement above, at times, was declared, as w whole, heretical. Check out a few references to Nestorianism—though you probably ought to avoid the Wikipedia article *sigh*—and you’ll soon be bogged down in a very determined splitting of hairs that will require much thought and perhaps a call to a local seminary prof for extraction. *heh*
**From the Curmudgeon’s Corner, a sidebar: I’m personally boycotting all children’s Christmas programs this year. Not because I dislike children—quite the contrary. No, it’s because I hate seeing children abused. I really find the child abuse that most children’s performance programs really are offensive. Catering to slack-jawed parents who just have to see little Johnny or Mary stumble through lines in a Christmas program written by someone with a tin ear for dialog or listen to them sing (as they have been taught to do) off-key, with no sense of internalized rhythm or pitch, yadayada, just to let the parents play vicariously to their own childish needs is appalling. Go ahead. Destroy—or at the very least, hobble via bad instruction—the creative spirit in the children, associate crappy art and their own poor performance in their minds’ eyes and ears, so that their own model of personal excellence in art is lowered, lowered, lowered to the already even lower levels of whomever is teaching them and the level their parentws have been schooled to produce. Disgusting. Oh. Well. Yes, there do remain a few choral and drama programs that produce performances by children that are worth seeing/hearing, but they’re rare enough that most children will never even be exposed to them, let alone have an opportunity to be involved with them. And so they grow up thinking off-key, sloppy performance is the best they can do and eventually have their sense of art so degraded they think that Top 40 “artists” can sing, that the dreck Hollyweird produces is worth seeing, etc.
Everyone sucks when they first start into anything. Its the nature of being a beginner/novice.
I see things rather differently. Until someone has tried to do something (and flailed ineptly), they can’t possibly appreciate how genuinely difficult doing it well really is.
I flailed at being a musician as a child and young adult. I was mechanically competent on the trumpet and guitar, but knew I was going nowhere and eventually put it down. It makes me appreciate a Segovia that much more knowing what it takes though.
Passive observers don’t really appreciate, they just look. Some kids in the neighborhood drop by and see some nice model airplanes hanging on the wall in my garage. They always ask “will you give me one” or “make me one”. I tell them “no, I’ll show you HOW to build one, but building it must be your own effort”. Without that effort, they can’t possibly understand the many hours of detailed craftsmanship needed to make the final product.
If I just gave them one, they’d treat it like a $1 toy from a dollar store and bust it in a matter of minutes. When their own time is invested, they learn a valuable life lesson about the dedication involved in a high quality custom creation and won’t take it for granted.
PA, well you do have a point, but ONLY if you recieved competent instruction.
Kids don’t have to suck at performance–musical, dramatic, whatever. My experience has been that when kids suck it’s almost ALWAYS because they’ve had poor instruction.
Let me take you to some seventh and eighth graders I once “inherited” in a band program. They were so well-schooled in their suckitudinousness tht the beginners passed them by (and kept on going) by Christmas.
Yeh, well-drilled in being crap musicians (or, more correctly, not musicians at all–“That’s a Bb there”(fingering a Bb for visual example) “This is my B” (fingers a B) “No, a Bb; here’s a B and here’s a Bb” (finger/play B, finger/play Bb)–child could neither hear nor see the difference. Typical of that crop of seventh/eighth graders.
They’d been ruined by crappy instruction and tone-deaf parents and teachers.
I hear kids singing off-key and off-rhythm, look at their director and can SEE the problem.
So, while on the surface it sounds good to say, “Everyone sucks when they first start into anything. Its the nature of being a beginner/novice,” having had many years’ experience listening to and teaching novices, I know the difference between bad singing/playing (and acting) that comes from inexperience and that which comes from crqappy instruction, year after year of crappy instruction.
And when a whole group of kids is flat simply and soley because their instructior doesn’t have the foggiest idea how to teach them how to simply pronounce words so that thery are better-tuned, then I can look sqaurely at rthe director and pronouce them a child abuser, without further evidence.
I’ve taken kids from crappy choirs and given them prvate instruction. Ruined them for their crappy choirs when they could begin to sing in tune.