Diversity and the Reason for the Season

The Reason for the Season

In

An increasingly Diverse Culture

Written by Dan McDonald

 

The Christmas tree display at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum, December 2014

 

            I know that during this time of each year there are a number of blogs, memes, and articles written about the Reason for the Season. On one side there are those who believe the Christian culture in what is supposed to be a Christian nation is being attacked. Those feeling Christianity is being undermined often are seeking to defend the assumption that a reason the nation is being blessed is because of our national ties to the Christian faith. I am not going to argue against that belief. I won’t pretend to understand all the reasons why nations rise and fall, but I do believe that God has a plan for the world. We participate in that plan and it winds its way like a stream meandering towards the ocean. We are the waters that cannot truly understand our places as we journey towards the ocean but part of my understanding of faith is expressed as waiting for the fulfillment in this Advent season.

            As we anticipate Christmas Day, and participate in the cultural expression of the Christmas season, I can fully understand as Christians reminding ourselves of the Reason for the season. We want to remind ourselves that the reason for the season is not endless amounts of sweets at work, or constant hurrying and scurrying in the season of buying the most exciting gifts for our loved ones. The reason for the season, we try to tell ourselves is Jesus. I think there is a certain degree of rightness for Christians to be reminding themselves and other Christians that Christ is the reason for the season.

            At least for me I am not ready to expect others in the world around me to feel the same way about Christmas as I do. Having been once to New York City in early December, there is still plenty of evidence that the city is experiencing its Christmas season. Yet people are careful about how they share their expressing their offering of blessings to others. As one passes by Jewish temples and synagogues and universities; or sees the food trucks offering Halal prepared foods, or sees a Sikh, or is asked for a donation by a Buddhist monk, one realizes that many of these people have their own religious festivals during what we consider the Christmas Season. Those living in an environment of multiculturalism generally seek not to be unnecessarily offensive. I work in the oil industry. Often times in the oil industry companies seek out the best qualified people in the world for their skills. In an oil town or an oil industry there are almost always some Muslims working for the organization. As one gets to know people on a people to people basis there is a time and place to refrain from talking about faith matters and a time and place where one is free to discuss matters. One learns to be respectful. I think most of us, even the ones who put the memes of “He is the reason for the season” up on their social website pages, would wish their Jewish friends a happy Hanukkah. It seems that sometimes we expect store owners to wish everybody a “Merry Christmas” when we would reserve for ourselves the right to use the phrase with discretion. When I am in a store where a number of women are buying groceries, wearing hijabs – I would never think of going up to one and forcing upon her “a merry Christmas.” That is probably part of the reason when I am in a store and a cashier says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” I feel honored rather than offended. Unless the cashier actually knows me, he or she doesn’t know what faith I actually practice if any.

            In my mind I think we have it backwards when we expect others to say “Merry Christmas” to us as if that is to be expected from others. I am pretty sure that Jesus never was wished a “Merry Christmas” in his entire earthly life. That may seem trite, but it isn’t. On Christmas we Christians celebrate Christ’s incarnation. He became man that man might be reconciled to God. Christmas was a time when God became man despite knowing that it would mean that in the weakness of his assumed humanity he would be surrounded by the contradiction of sinners. He would be ridiculed, and he would go the distance in his calling to enter our weakness to the point of death in order to bring us to God. He would break boundaries by speaking to a Samaritan woman, healing a Syrian woman, embracing before healing an unclean leper, eating and drinking with sinners. If on Christmas Day we remember Christ as the Reason for the Season, we also remember the reason for the Incarnation is he came to be the bridge between heaven and earth and to reach out to a world where not one human being could claim privilege as a sinner before a holy God. He came not to be served with a proper greeting, but to reach out to those living in darkness.

            I try to be careful with how I celebrate Christmas. The first thing I want as a Christian towards others is to plant the impression that their humanity is important. I probably won't initially speak religious words, but when dealing with busy customers in an aisle, or with a cashier standing long hours dealing with customers in the check out line – I want to behave in a way that supports my belief that their humanity matters. I don’t think Jesus expects us as his followers to demand to be served. I do believe that he wants us to be his hands and feet to express his kindness and redemptive presence in the world. I had a moment today when I doubt I did a good job of that. I have a lot to learn, but because Jesus is the reason for the season, I won't demand blessings from others but I hope I grow in the grace of being and presenting a blessing unto others.

A Painting at the Whitney

A Painting at the Whitney

By Dan McDonald

 

 

            I think some of life’s greatest impressions upon me have happened during vacations. Perhaps it is because I have been relieved momentarily from the routines of life to which it is easy to become addicted. In many vacations I have seen or experienced at least one thing that has had a transformational tendency on my life. One such experience happened as I took time to look at a painting this year on display in the Whitney Museum. New York City has become one of my favorite places to visit on vacation. I have come back from my vacations each year having seen a sight or having experienced something that gave me something to think about in relationship to life.

This week was the second year anniversary of my first vacation taken in New York City. The photographs of my visit to the City in the memories on my Facebook page led me to reflect on a couple of brief exchanges. It seems that some of those transformational moments from my trips to the Big Apple have been impressions around a common theme.

In December of 2014 I went to New York expecting to stay in a room with a host in an Airbnb accommodation. When I got there I discovered I wouldn’t really see my Airbnb host for more than a few minutes. I found myself alone in New York City. It was a short vacation. I arrived on a Monday evening and was scheduled to fly back to Oklahoma on Monday morning. I began to wonder if my visit to New York City was to be the experience of three days of loneliness. Maybe this whole trip was just a mistake.

I hadn’t eaten yet, so I walked down 10^th West Avenue and began to look for a place to eat. I guess I wanted something to remind me of home. I was feeling as if the vacation was going to be a horrible experience of a farm kid lost in the big city where he was crazy to imagine he should have ever gone. I saw a pub that reminded me of one where I go in Oklahoma. It reminded me of a pub I would occasionally visit in Tulsa that had some decent food dishes that could be complimented with a really good pint of ale. That was a turning point. The server was the sort of person who would talk small talk and make you feel welcomed. There are many stories about how rude New Yorkers are, but my server was a true people person.

A couple of days later I was headed to the Dumbo area on the Brooklyn side of the East River across from Manhattan. Someone told me I should go there before leaving New York City so that my visit to the city wouldn’t just be a visit to Manhattan. I took a subway to the general vicinity of the area but I was always getting disoriented and going the wrong direction in New York. It was already dark and I wanted to make sure I got to where I was planning on going, and not wandering aimlessly in the dark in Brooklyn. One young tired looking woman with one young energetic looking son got off the train at the same stop as I did. So I asked her if she could tell me how to get to where I was planning on going. She tried giving me directions, speaking of certain landmarks and streets which registered as unknowns in my mind. I guess she could see the vacant expression on my face as I tried to follow her directions. The next part of the conversation astonished and overwhelmed me. She told me that she was headed to her apartment a few blocks away and if I would walk with her for a couple of blocks she could point the way to go and it would be a lot easier that way. It was already dark. The streets we took did not have an abundance of pedestrians but she invited me along to a place where she could give me directions I would more likely be able to follow. I have seldom been so overwhelmed by someone’s kindness in my life. Here was a tired Mom taking her more than energetic son home, taking the time to help a tourist find his way in Brooklyn. From that evening onwards you could never convince me that New Yorkers are rude or only think of themselves. I would borrow some words from a song entitled “In the Cathedrals of New York and Rome” to describe what I found in New Yorkers; “in the cathedrals of New York and Rome there is a feeling that you should just go home and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.”

With that as background I can tell the story of how this year I was especially moved at the Whitney Museum as I looked into a painting that captured my imagination. At first glance it doesn’t seem like great art. I don’t think it will ever be viewed as a masterpiece. Yet once I saw it, I had to come back to it a half dozen or more times.

 

 

            I noticed how this piece of modern art captured the subjects of the painting in comic book like caricatures. But my attention seemed drawn to the woman on the bottom right. I began noticing things that made her unique. Her hair reflected light. Her eye seemed more as if drawn to be realistic rather than caricature. Her face had more color in comparison with the almost ashen color of the other people in the painting. She wore a necklace and her clothing was more colorful. She seemed to have her focus set on her neighbor to her left. It was as if she was more human and less caricatured than the others in the painting. It was all subtle. Was I only imagining what I saw, or was I seeing what the artist had carefully painted into this piece of art? That is why I kept coming back to this painting that fascinated me. What was it that I was seeing in this piece of art?

            For me this piece of art seemed to be capturing a mystery of human life. When we meet someone, do we see a person as they truly are or merely as caricatures in our minds based on the features we see? When I see a New Yorker walking towards me with their eyes not noticing anyone on the street do I see unfriendliness or is that only a caricature because I have never had the opportunity to hear about their hopes, fears, dreams, enjoyments and sorrows?

            There is mystery I believe in this painting. As a Christian I am moved to realize there I mystery revealed in the pages of Holy Scripture. God is their author. He reveals himself through His Word. But the Scriptures are also for us as people who ponder its message, a mirror that continually reflects us. The Word of God written by God to a people created in His image at once speaks to us of the God who is holy, who is glory, and who is love and we see ourselves in the mirror in our sins but also as the ones loved by God and as the ones intended to bear his image. A painting is often a similar sort of mystery. The author created in the image of God writes in his painting a story expressing something of his own values and convictions or lack of them. We who look at his painting see the same painting and imagine its message to us. The painting has become a mirror in which we seek to view our own lives.

            But what is it about our humanity that brought Jesus to quickly make the connection between the first and greatest commandment and a second commandment that joined to it summarized the entire law? What is it about “Love God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”?  Is it not that God in his creation of our creation has created us to be especially in his image?

            Whether consciously or unconsciously has this artist sought to show how someone focused on a neighbor is by that focus transformed through the experience? Her focus on her neighbor brings softness to her eyes, color to her cheeks, and tenderness to her appearance. She has moved from being absorbed in herself to being focused on another and she has broken from the caricature of our isolated individuality to the beginnings of discovering humanity by engaging with humanity the form of broken, wounded human beings created in the image of God.

            In the cathedrals of New York and Rome we get this feeling that we are meant to go home and find out just where that is. In the face of a neighbor as we refocus from our wounds, our dreams, our lives and become engaged in seeing and hearing another’s life story we are by the experience transformed. For it is impossible for us to love God whom we cannot see while not loving man, created in God’s image whom we can see. Whatever this artist understood about life and theology, the artist seemed to have understood that for us to be transfigured into a more radiant humanity we must become engaged with the humanity of people around us. Perhaps I would have never seen this in this painting in the Whitney except once I had been alone and a server cheered me up, and once I had been wandering in the darkness and a tired mom said “walk with me for a little ways and I can better point you in the direction you need to go.”