Advent III - Santa Claus

Advent III

This is the third Sunday of advent, 2011. We have been seeking to "pump up the volume" (so to speak) of our holiday sensitivities by delving (a little deeper than usual) into the resonance of archetypal symbologies. Last week we talked a lot about the cycles of the sun in its yearly passage between darkness and light; we also talked about light in general, as it shines symbolically forth from candles, and Christmas tree lights, and angels, etc. We also have suggested that this time of year awakens in us ancient memories of primordial man, remembering, in us, his magical tales--we have suggested that, in the waning of the light, there is both hope for the future and a nostalgic descent into pre-conscious mind states where live the elves, and gnomes and fauns of a fairyland that long ago disappeared in the mists of time.

On such residual elf, who haunts the edges of our Christmas Mind, is Santa Claus. Santa Claus is constantly paraded before our eyes at this time of year, so many of our thoughts are unavoidably diverted to him. I though it would be fun (in the best possible sense of the word) to present something on Santa Claus, and see if he is a good guy or not.

Of course, the greatest Santa Claus movie of all time is Miracle on 34th St. That movie's invocation of faith, in a materialistic world, is a message that will bear repeating until the end of time. But it is not the classic Natalie Wood movie I wish to quote first, but a remake of Miracle on 34th St. with little original speech inserted by John Hughes:

"Santa Claus: I'm not just a whimsical figure who wears a charming suit and affects a jolly demeanor, you know; I'm a symbol--I'm a symbol of the human ability to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives. And if you can't accept anything on faith, then you're doomed to a life dominated by doubt."

Thus, even in the most popular, commercial productions in the mainstream, Santa Claus and faith are intimately linked. The question of whether you should teach your kids about Santa Claus, or not, calls into question, at a basic level, just how deeply committed you are to living a life that affirms the existence of things not seen. The Baptists insist, against all reasonable scientific proof, that the world was created in six days, and yet many of the grown-up Baptists DON'T believe in Santa Claus. Whassup wit dat? I say that these two scenarios, Creationism and Santa Claus, call forth qualities of belief that have much in common with each other. The suspension of rational constraints in favor of an impulse of the heart, an impulse of desire, and an openness to the possibilities of the miraculous, is at the root of all faithful thoughts, and is the impetus behind all faithful acts.

Wikipedia makes this comment concerning the LIE of Santa Claus:

". . . it is perhaps "kinship with the adult world" that causes children not to be angry that they were lied to for so long. The criticism about this deception is not that it is a simple lie, but a complicated series of very large lies. The objections to the lie are that it is unethical for parents to lie to children without good cause, and that it discourages healthy skepticism in children. With no greater good at the heart of the lie, it is charged that it is more about the parents than it is about the children. Writer Austin Cline posed the question: "Is it not possible that kids would find at least as much pleasure in knowing that parents are responsible for Christmas, not a supernatural stranger?"

Others, however, see no harm in the belief in Santa Claus. Psychologist Tamar Murachver said that because it is a cultural, not parental, lie, it does not undermine parental trust. The New Zealand Skeptics also see no harm in parents telling their children that Santa is real. Spokesperson Vicki Hyde said, "It would be a hard-hearted parent indeed who frowned upon the innocent joys of our children's cultural heritage. We save our bah humbugs for the things that exploit the vulnerable." It can also be advocated that, although Santa Claus isn't real, the Christmas spirit is real."

[Sidebar: I think that Santa Claus is part of the "spirit of Christmas" in this way: by teaching the children to be open to the magical, irrational dimensions of life we are preparing them to buy into the bigger, more significant acts of faith that are to come. Believing in Santa Claus is kind of like doing little faith warm-ups, little faithy push-ups, before you have to carry that weight up the hill. And even after the mystique of Santa Claus has been penetrated and dispensed with, the MAGIC is still there--we can never UNLEARN Santa Claus.]

Back to Wikipedia:

"Dr. John Condry of Cornell University interviewed more than 500 children for a study of the issue and found that not a single child was angry at his or her parents for telling them Santa Claus was real. According to Dr. Condry, "The most common response to finding out the truth was that they felt older and more mature. They now knew something that the younger kids did not".

The other side of the debate concludes with another referenced quote of:

There are three stages of a man’s life:
He believes in Santa Claus,
he doesn’t believe in Santa Claus,
he is Santa Claus. -
Author Unknown "

Perhaps, before we get into Santa Claus, we should get into this whole deal of gift-giving. The Wise Men usually take the rap for originating this tradition. It seems natural, that in this time of weakest sunlight, darkest day, that something to enhance our feeling of safety and abundance should emerge to counter the lengthening shadows. Furthermore, the gifts of the Wise Men were given to Jesus' family in their extremity. As I mentioned last week, the gifts of the Magi included not only monetary insurance again the rigors of exile, but also some kingly pleasures thrown in, so that even a poor Jewish couple on the lam might enjoy a few kingly comforts in their idle hours. So too, may we ensconce ourselves in the comforts of the season as the luxuries combat the fear attached to the diminishing sun.

But last week Wikipedia gave us a little something extra to attach to the first Christmas presents; they reminded us that even Christmas presents have both a practical and a symbolic value:

"The legend of the three priest-sages, the three kings, was linked with the Christ Birth Festival. They brought to the Child gold, the symbol of the wisdom-filled outer man; myrrh, the symbol of life's victory over death, and finally, frankincense, the symbol of the cosmic ether in which the spirit lives."

Also from Wikipedia, we read:

"The exchanging of gifts is one of the core aspects of the modern Christmas celebration, making the Christmas season the most profitable time of year for retailers and businesses throughout the world. Gift giving was common in the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, an ancient festival which took place in late December and may have influenced Christmas customs. Christmas gift giving was banned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages due to its suspected pagan origins. It was later rationalized by the Church on the basis that it associated St. Nicholas with Christmas, and that gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were given to the infant Jesus by the Biblical Magi."

From C.S.Lewis' “What Christmas Means to Me” in God in the Dock:

"Three things go by the name of Christmas. One is a religious festival. This is important and obligatory for Christians; but as it can be of no interest to anyone else, I shall naturally say no more about it here. The second (it has complex historical connections with the first, but we needn't go into them) is a popular holiday, an occasion for merry-making and hospitality. If it were my business to have a 'view' on this, I should say that I much approve of merry-making. But what I approve of much more is everybody minding his own business. I see no reason why I should volunteer views as to how other people should spend their own money in their own leisure among their own friends. It is highly probable that they want my advice on such matters as little as I want theirs. But the third thing called Christmas is unfortunately everyone's business.

I mean of course the commercial racket. The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers."

So, you can see there is controversy over the proper mix of spirituality and materialism involved in the giving of Christmas presents. I admit it, I like lots of presents around the tree (these days, it's in your Amazon.com bill, but oh, well). I like the feeling that once a year we are allowed to revel in the abundance God has blessed us with. I love to say, with the African Chief in Isak Dineson's book, Out of Africa:

"God give me enough and more than enough."

Living on "just enough" carries with it its own joy, because living on faith relieves us of SO many burdens--still, over-abundance once in a while is a welcome, if only temporary, change. I have lived on "just enough" for most of my life, and this has trained me be a real enthusiastic appreciator of abundance when it pays a brief visit.

Now let's take a closer look at the non plus ultra of all gift givers, Santa Claus:

We begin with the article in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Santa Claus has a Dutch origin. He was developed from St. Nicholas who was a real person. St. Nicholas, was the patron saint of school boys. He brought gifts to the children. The idea that Santa Claus comes down the chimney originated in Norway, where children hang Christmas stockings on the fireplace mantel. Christmas trees have pagan origins. When pagans became Christian, they used evergreens (a sacred tree) for the holiday by decorating them with nuts and candles. They sang Christmas carols as they danced around the Christmas tree.


The modern portrayal of Santa Claus frequently depicts him listening to the Christmas wishes of young children.

Santa Claus, usually abbreviated Santa, is a figure in North American culture who reflects an amalgamation of the Dutch Sinterklaas, the English Father Christmas, and Christmas gift-bringers in other traditions. Santa Claus is said to bring gifts to the homes of good children during the late evening and overnight hours of Christmas Eve, December 24. Santa Claus in this contemporary understanding echoes aspects of hagiographical tales

[From the Greek (h)ağios (ἅγιος, "holy" or "saint") and graphēin (γράφειν, "to write"), it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders.]

concerning the historical figure of gift-giver Saint Nicholas, the man from whom the name of Santa Claus derives and in whose honor Santa Claus may be referred to as Saint Nicholas or Saint Nick.

Santa Claus is generally depicted as a plump, jolly, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots (images of him rarely have a beard with no moustache). This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast.This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children's books and films. The North American depiction of Santa Claus as it developed in the 19th and 20th century in turn influenced the modern perceptions of Father Christmas, Sinterklaas and Saint Nicholas in European culture.

According to a tradition which can be traced to the 1820s, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, with a large number of magical elves, and nine (originally eight) flying reindeer. Since the 20th century, in an idea popularized by the 1934 song "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior ("naughty" or "nice") and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. He accomplishes this feat with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the reindeer who pull his sleigh.
Saint Nicholas


Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Christian figure of Sinterklaas. He was a 4th century Greek Christian bishop of Myra (now Demre) in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Anatolia, now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous gifts to the poor, in particular presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes. He was very religious from an early age and devoted his life entirely to Christianity. In Europe (more precisely the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany) he is still portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes.

In 1087, the Italian city of Bari, wanting to enter the profitable pilgrimage industry of the times, mounted an expedition to locate the tomb of the Christian Saint and procure his remains. The reliquary of St. Nicholas was desecrated by Italian sailors and the spoils, including his relics, taken to Bari where they are kept to this day. A basilica was constructed the same year to store the loot and the area became a pilgrimage site for the devout, thus justifying the economic cost of the expedition. Saint Nicholas was later claimed as a patron saint of many diverse groups, from archers, sailors, and children to pawnbrokers. He is also the patron saint of both Amsterdam and Moscow.

Despite Santa Claus's mixed Christian roots, he has become a secular representation of Christmas. As such, some Protestants dislike the secular focus on Santa Claus and the materialist focus that gift giving brings to the holiday. Such a condemnation of Christmas is not a 20th century phenomenon, but originated among some Protestant groups of the 16th century and was prevalent among the Puritans of 17th century England and colonial America who banned the holiday as either pagan or Roman Catholic. Christmas was made legal with the Restoration but the Puritan opposition to the holiday persisted in New England for almost two centuries.


Following the Restoration of the monarchy and with Puritans out of power in England, the ban on Christmas was satirized in works such as Josiah King's The Examination and Tryal of Old Father Christmas; Together with his Clearing by the Jury (1686)."

The following is from the Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, a Maine native, widow of Thomas Burge, and resident living ca. 40 miles southeast of Atlanta near Covington, Georgia. This entry from Mrs. Burge's diary was five weeks after most of General T. Sherman's U.S. Army forces had passed on their blackened-earth "march across Georgia" toward Savanna, after the army's destruction of Atlanta in mid-November, 1864. U.S. Army mop-up companies and stragglers during those intervening weeks continued to "forage", loot, burn, and abduct ex-slaves reluctant to leave their families and friends, hence, the concern of Mrs. Burge and her household.

"December 24, 1864. This has usually been a very busy day with me, preparing for Christmas not only for my own tables, but for gifts for my servants. Now how changed! No confectionary, cakes, or pies can I have. We are all sad; no loud, jovial laugh from our boys is heard. Christmas Eve, which has ever been gaily celebrated here, which has witnessed the popping of firecrackers … and the hanging up of stockings, is an occasion now of sadness and gloom. I have nothing even to put in [8-yr-old daughter] Sadai's stocking, which hangs so invitingly for Santa Claus. How disappointed she will be in the morning, though I have explained to her why he cannot come. Poor children! Why must the innocent suffer with the guilty?"

"In 1821, the book A New-year's present, to the little ones from five to twelve is published in New York. It contains Old Santeclaus, an anonymous poem describing an old man on a reindeer sleigh, bringing presents to children. Some modern ideas of Santa Claus seemingly became canon after the publication of the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (better known today as "The Night Before Christmas") in the Troy, New York, Sentinel on December 23, 1823 anonymously; the poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore. Many of his modern attributes are established in this poem, such as riding in a sleigh that lands on the roof, entering through the chimney, and having a bag full of toys."

Last week What'sYourSign.com provided us with a nice folk version of this tradition's origin:

"Christmas Stocking
There is a legend associated with the origin of Christmas stockings. St. Nick, who wanted to remain anonymous and help a poor family, threw gold coins down their chimney. They fell into a stocking that was hanging there to dry."

Back to Wikipedia:

"St. Nick is described as being "chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf" with "a little round belly", that "shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly", in spite of which the "miniature sleigh" and "tiny reindeer" still indicate that he is physically diminutive.
As years pass, Santa Claus evolves in popular culture into a large, heavyset person. An 1881 illustration by Thomas Nast, together with Clement Clarke Moore, helped to create the modern image of Santa Claus.
L. Frank Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, a 1902 children's book, further popularized Santa Claus. Much of Santa Claus’s mythos was not set in stone at the time, leaving Baum to give his "Neclaus" (Necile’s Little One) a wide variety of immortal support, a home in the Laughing Valley of Hohaho, and ten reindeer—who could not fly, but leapt in enormous, flight-like bounds. Claus's immortality was earned, much like his title ("Santa"), decided by a vote of those naturally immortal. This work also established Claus’s motives: a happy childhood among immortals. When Ak, Master Woodsman of the World, exposes him to the misery and poverty of children in the outside world, Santa strives to find a way to bring joy into the lives of all children, and eventually invents toys as a principal means.

Images of Santa Claus were further popularized through Haddon Sundblom’s depiction of him for The Coca-Cola Company’s Christmas advertising in the 1930s. The popularity of the image spawned urban legends that Santa Claus was invented by The Coca-Cola Company or that Santa wears red and white because they are the colors used to promote the Coca-Cola brand. Historically, Coca-Cola was not the first soft drink company to utilize the modern image of Santa Claus in its advertising – White Rock Beverages had already used a red and white Santa to sell mineral water in 1915 and then in advertisements for its ginger ale in 1923. In fact, Santa Claus had already appeared in red and white on the cover of Puck magazine at the start of the century.

Santa's main distribution center is a sight to behold. At 4,000,000 square feet (370,000 m2), it's one of the world's largest facilities. A real-time warehouse management system (WMS) is of course required to run such a complex. The facility makes extensive use of task interleaving, literally combining dozens of DC activities (putaway, replenishing, order picking, sleigh loading, cycle counting) in a dynamic queue...the DC elves have been on engineered standards and incentives for three years, leading to a 12% gain in productivity...The WMS and transportation system are fully integrated, allowing (the elves) to make optimal decisions that balance transportation and order picking and other DC costs. Unbeknownst to many, Santa actually has to use many sleighs and fake Santa drivers to get the job done Christmas Eve, and the transportation management system (TMS) optimally builds thousands of consolidated sacks that maximize cube utilization and minimize total air miles.

Symbol of Commercialism
In his book Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus, writer Jeremy Seal describes how the commercialization of the Santa Claus figure began in the 19th century. "In the 1820s he began to acquire the recognizable trappings: reindeer, sleigh, bells," said Seal in an interview. "They are simply the actual bearings in the world from which he emerged. At that time, sleighs were how you got about Manhattan."
Writing in Mothering, writer Carol Jean-Swanson makes similar points, noting that the original figure of St. Nicholas gave only to those who were needy and that today Santa Claus seems to be more about conspicuous consumption:

"Our jolly old Saint Nicholas reflects our culture to a T, for he is fanciful, exuberant, bountiful, over-weight, and highly commercial. He also mirrors some of our highest ideals: childhood purity and innocence, selfless giving, unfaltering love, justice, and mercy. (What child has ever received a coal for Christmas?) The problem is that, in the process, he has become burdened with some of society's greatest challenges: materialism, corporate greed, and domination by the media. Here, Santa carries more in his baggage than toys alone!"

So, Santa Claus is a spirit, a feeling, a symbol, an icon? Do we see God in Santa's jolly eyes, do we hear angels singing in his merry laugh? I tell you, I LIKE Santa Claus, and I enjoy the dreamworld that he brings down the chimney. I think he may be the nicest fusion of spirituality and materialism there is: as we have mentioned repeatedly of the parable, an historic event may resonate on many levels of meaning at the same time. I think the un-self-conscious joy of Santa Claus may be said to sum up the bottom line of a life of faith--Happiness.

Let us pray: Jesus, as the time of your arrival approaches, let us glory in the gift, and pass it on as we may, in guise of austere nobility of the east, or a red-coated circus clown. Let them dance together high atop camel and chimney, and drop down their showers of blessings upon us. As the African chief says to the sunrise:

"Oh God give me enough and more than enough!"

Let us realize we have everything we need already, and here it comes again, hooyah! Amen.

Advent I

Advent I

Last Sunday we took a tour through some background material on Advent, and suggested the proposition that the coming of the Christ consciousness is given through grace and taken through choice. We also talked, in a general way, about the signs and symbols of the time and how a childlike perspective on the season's archetypal energies may reveal phenomena of a pre-conscious quality--may, in fact, lead to a perception of these symbols at a higher-than-normal level of magical resonance.

This magical resonance may be said to derive from the deep past of Man's sojourn on Earth--from a time when Man's literal consciousness was not so dominant, and his "unliteral, or non-verbal consciousness" allowed shifts from one consciousness state to another with more freedom, less inhibition, than is typical in people today. I'm glad I can talk and I'm glad I can think, but I know the talking and the thinking have cost me something: they have cut me off from a more primitive version of myself. Indeed when I think of Santa's elves, or Narnia's centaurs, I think of something quite ancient, something buried quite deep in my collective memory. Perhaps Christmas is such a nostalgic time because the radiance of primordial light beacons out of these ancient symbologies like searchlights of memory, enlightening our vision, but directing our eyes BACKWARD.


When one asks oneself, "Am I better off now, with all my fancy pants ideas, expressions, and concepts? or was it better back then, when we traveled, unhindered, over the rolling planes of experience, in a relatively mindless medium of intuitive understanding, connected to the infinite, but lacking definition? In this regard, I am reminded of the remarks I made in the sermon on New Wine:

. . . let us not forget that, seen from the spiritual perspective, the new is always contained in the old, and we MUST keep the eternal in our sights, as we struggle to find new ways of articulating transient, temporal, earthly experience. . .

Jesus, lend us your divine intelligence so that we may see ourselves growing and changing in your transforming light. Prepare us to accept the new wine of your eternal changeless truth as it leads us ever upward to a heaven where all contradictions are moot, and all peace and love calm our clamoring voices into silence.

Yes, we must always have the infinite before us, regardless of the level of consciousness on which we may find ourselves at any given moment; and yet, eternity notwithstanding, the ancient images seem so much more powerful at this time of year than they do at other times. Is it the time of year that evokes the images, or do the images evoke the time of year? Perhaps it is, as C.S. Lewis says, the RHYTHM of the seasons that makes each phase seem unique and significant? that makes Christmas the special, stand-out time that it is.

We hear a lot about keeping the spirit of Christmas all year round. Yuck. True, Christmasy attitudes of generosity, cheerfulness, intimacy, and grace, are qualities we would like to see regularly inspiring all our daily doings with heavenly radiance; but to have Christmas ALL YEAR ROUND? Who could handle it? To me, Christmas is like a great oasis in the sea of life's journey. To enjoy the oasis is our pleasure and our right, but to stay forever at an oasis, when the rest of the journey is yet to be traveled? No way! I think our attraction to, and comfort in, the deep past works like this: when a child is first learning to walk, or do some other independent act, he may push off from his mother's lap, take a few steps, return, take a few more steps, return, take a few more steps, return, and so on, each time returning to the mother before taking bigger and bigger steps, off on his own; perhaps connecting with the ancient symbols for a season, and getting in touch with pre-conscious states, is the kind of motherly confidence builder we need to help push on out to sea in search of our own personal adventure, and, eventually, next year's oasis.

No matter how you cut it, we are in a season all of whose social conventions direct our attention to the mind states of ancient days; and although the symbols have been massively trivialized, so that nochildisleftbehindeverybodyisequalandgetsavoteGodblessuseveryone,
the latent power of these symbols still works its way into our pre-consciousness (where it belongs), and registers its presence as a background hum that sometimes sings louder, sometimes softer.

Today's featured work is Steiner's Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival, a lecture given in Berlin, December 17, 1906

The Christmas festival, which we are about to celebrate, gains new life through a deepened spiritual world view. In a spiritual sense the Christmas festival is a sun festival, and as such we shall become acquainted with it today. To begin, we shall hear that most beautiful apostrophe to the sun that Goethe puts in the mouth of Faust.

Refreshed anew life's pulses beat and waken

To greet the mild ethereal dawn of morning;

Earth, through this night thou too hast stood unshaken

And breath'st before me in thy new adorning,

Beginst to wrap me round with gladness thrilling,

A vigorous resolve in me forewarning,

Unceasing strife for life supreme instilling.
—
Now lies the world revealed in twilight glimmer,

The wood resounds, a thousand voices trilling;

The vales where mist flows in and out lie dimmer,

But in the gorges sinks a light from heaven,

And boughs and twigs, refreshed, lift up their shimmer

From fragrant chasms where they slept at even;

Tint upon tint again emerges, clearing

Where trembling pearls from flower and leaf drip riven:

All round me is a Paradise appearing.

             Look up! —
The peaks, gigantic and supernal,

Proclaim the hour most solemn now is nearing.

They early may enjoy the light eternal

That later to us here below is wended.

Now on the alpine meadows, sloping, vernal,

A clear and lavish glory has descended

And step by step fulfils its journey's ending.

The sun steps forth!
— Alas, already blinded,
I turn away, the pain my vision rending.
             Thus is it ever when a hope long yearning

Has made a wish its own, supreme, transcending,

And finds Fulfilment's portals outward turning;

From those eternal deeps bursts ever higher

Too great a flame, we stand, with wonder burning.

To kindle life's fair torch we did aspire

And seas of flame — and what a flame! — embrace us!


Is it Love? Is it Hate? that twine us with their fire,

In alternating joy and pain enlace us,

So that again toward earth we turn our gazing,

Baffled, to hide in youth's fond veils our faces.
             Behind me therefore let the sun be blazing!

The cataract in gorges deeply riven

I view with rapture growing and amazing.

To plunge on plunge in a thousand streams it's given,

And yet a thousand, downward to the valleys,

While foam and mist high in the air are driven.

Yet how superb above this tumult sallies

The many-colored rainbow's changeful being;

Now lost in air, now clearly drawn, it dailies,

Shedding sweet coolness round us even when fleeing!

The rainbow mirrors human aims and action.

Think, and more clearly wilt thou grasp it, seeing

Life is but light in many-hued reflection.

Goethe lets his representative of mankind speak these mighty words in the presence of the radiant, rising morning sun. But it is not this sun, awakening anew every morning, with which we have to deal in the festival we will speak about today. This sun is a being of much profounder depths, and the nature of it shall be the leitmotif of our present considerations.

We shall now hear the words that reflect the deepest meaning of the Christmas Mystery. These words have been heard by the pupils of the Mysteries of all ages before they entered the Mysteries themselves:

Behold the Sun

At midnight hour,

And build with stones

In lifeless clay.

So find in world decline

And in the night of death

Creation's new beginning

And morning's youthful strength.

Let heights above reveal

The Gods' eternal word,

May depths preserve and seal

The peaceful treasure-hoard.

In darkness living

O now create a Sun!

In substance weaving

O know the Bliss of Spirit.

Many people who today merely know the Christmas tree with its candles believe that to have a tree symbolizing Christmas is a traditional custom dating from ancient times. This, however, is not the case. On the contrary, the custom of decorating a tree at Christmas is most recent and does not date back more than a few centuries. The custom of decorating a Christmas tree is a recent phenomenon, but the celebration of Christmas is old. The festival at Christmas time was known in the most ancient Mysteries of all religions everywhere, and has always been celebrated.

It is not merely an outer sun festival, but one that leads man to a divination of the sources of existence. It was celebrated annually by the highest initiates in the Mysteries at the time of year when the sun's force was weakest and bestowed least warmth upon the earth. It was also celebrated by those who were unable to participate in the entire celebration, but were permitted to experience only the outer pictorial expression of the highest Mysteries."

It is worth it to interrupt the flow here, to comment on the subject of "parable". Remember, we have commented profusely on Jesus' use of the parable in transmitting his good news. We have mentioned how Jesus' message is appreciable on many different levels of meaning--that there is in it, indeed, something for everybody. My point here is that, yes, you guessed it, Christmas has something in it for everybody. The glitter, and the tinsel, and the fluorescent lights can never completely shout down those mystic voices singing to us from distant peaks, crooning the old songs. I think it must be impossible for any individual to be completely unaffected by the celebrations of the season, but I'm sure there are various degrees of inspiration.

This brings us to us: we can enhance the degree of inspired connection with the spiritual potentials of the season through acts of choice and will--we can use this heightened psychic atmosphere to pump up the volume, and get more out of the time than if we just passively let it happen to us. I'm saying that one of the prime spirits of Christmas should be enthusiasm. I'm saying we should "seize the day" and hasten its blossoming with blessings of power. I'm saying we should get going while the going is good. I'm saying we should look into some candles around here and see Baby Jesus smiling back His fragile, pathetic smile.

Back to Steiner:

"This imagery has been preserved throughout the ages and has assumed forms in accordance with the various religious confessions. The celebration of Christmas is the festival of the Sacred Night, which, in the great Mysteries, was celebrated by those personalities who were ready to bring about the resurrection of the higher self within their inmost being. Today we would say, "Within their inmost being they gave birth to the Christ."

. . . Those who were prepared for the awakening, as were pupils of the Mysteries, were first taught what the awakening signifies in the great universe; only then was the rite of awakening performed. It took place at the time when darkness on earth is greatest, when the outer sun has reached its lowest point at Christmas time, because those who are acquainted with spiritual facts know that at that time of year, forces stream through cosmic space that are favorable to such an awakening.

[There's the answer to my question about whether the season brings the symbols or the symbols bring the season.]

In his preparation, the pupil was told that the one who really wished to know should not merely know what has taken place during thousands and thousands of years on earth, but he must learn to survey the entire course of human evolution, realizing that the great festivals have their place within this, and that they must be dedicated to the contemplation of the great eternal truths.

. . .The pupils were prepared by these teachings, which were constantly impressed upon them. Then they were led to their awakening. The moment arrived when, as chosen ones, they experienced by means of their awakened spirit organs, the spiritual light within them. This holy moment came when the outer light was weakest, on the day when the outer sun shines least. On that day the pupils were gathered together, and the inner light revealed itself to them.

Those who were still unable to participate in this celebration were able to experience at least an outer likeness of it from which they learned that for them, too, the great moment would come.

[Here we return to "parable". Note the reference below to "lesser Mysteries.]

"Today," they were told, "you behold only an image; later you will experience what you now see as a likeness." These were the lesser Mysteries. They showed in pictures what the neophyte was to experience later.

We shall hear today of what took place in the lesser Mysteries on Christmas eve. . . Everywhere the pupils of these Mystery Schools had the same experience at the midnight hour on the Night of Consecration.

The pupils gathered in the early evening. In quiet contemplation they had to make clear to themselves what this most important event signified. In deep silence they sat together in the darkness. By the time midnight drew near, they had been sitting in the dark room for hours. Thoughts of eternity pervaded their souls. Then, toward midnight, mysterious tones arose, resounding through the room, up welling and diminishing. The pupils who heard these tones knew that this was the music of the spheres. Then the room became dimly lit, the only light emanating from a dimly lighted disc. Those who saw this knew that this disc represented the earth. The illumined disc became darker and darker, until finally it was quite black. Simultaneously the surrounding space grew brighter. Those who saw this knew that the black sphere represented the earth. The sun, however, which ordinarily irradiates the earth was concealed; the earth could no longer see the sun. Then around the earth-disc, at the outer edge, rainbow colors formed, ring upon ring. Those who saw it knew that this was the radiant Iris. At midnight a violet-reddish circle gradually arose in place of the black earth sphere. On it a Word was written. . . Christos.

Those who saw it knew that this was the sun, which appeared to them at the midnight hour, when the world around rests in deepest darkness. The pupils were now told that what they had experienced was called, "Seeing the sun at the midnight hour." . . .

[That it was] a symbolical indication of the fact that from apparent death life springs forth . . . They were told that just as the sun force, after it had seemingly died, waxes anew from this day on, so does new life forever arise out of dying life.
The same event is indicated in the Gospel of St. John in the words, "He must increase, but I must decrease." John, the herald of the coming Christ, of the Spiritual Light, whose festival day falls in the course of the year in mid-summer — John must decrease, and simultaneously with his decrease the force of the coming light waxes, increasing in strength as John decreases. In like manner the new, the coming life prepares itself in the seed that must wither and decay in order that the new plant may spring forth from it.

The pupils of the Mysteries were to experience that in death life resides, that out of decaying matter the new, glorious blossoms and fruits of spring arise, that the earth teems with the forces of birth. They were to learn that at this time something happens in the inner being of the earth — the overcoming of death by life that is present in death. This was shown them in the conquering light. This they felt and experienced when they saw the light arise and shine in the darkness. They beheld in the stone cave the sprouting life arising in splendor and abundance out of the seemingly dead. . . the spiritual essence will remain with all men who have become radiant in their innermost nature through the spiritual Light. Earth and humanity will then awaken to a higher existence, to a new phase of existence.

When Christianity arose in the course of evolution, it bore this ideal within it in the highest sense. Man felt that within Christianity the Christos was to appear as the great Ideal of all men, that He had been born on the Night of Consecration about the time of deepest darkness as a sign that out of the darkness of matter a higher man can be born in the human soul. . .

Everything in the cosmos takes its rhythmic course. The stars as well as the sun follow a great rhythm. Were the sun to change this rhythm but for a moment, were it to leave its orbit only for a moment, a revolution would result in the entire universe of quite unheard-of significance. Rhythm rules all nature, right up to man. Only with man does the situation change. The rhythm that rules until death throughout the course of the seasons in the forces of growth, propagation, etc., ceases with man. He is to stand in freedom, and the more highly civilized he is, the more does this rhythm decrease. Just as the light disappears at Christmas, so apparently has rhythm disappeared from the life of man and chaos prevails. Man, however, gives birth to this rhythm out of his own initiative out of his own inner nature. He must so fashion his life out of his will that it takes its course within rhythmical boundaries, steadfast and sure, like the course of the sun. Just as a change in the course of the sun is unthinkable, even so is it unthinkable that the rhythm of such a life be interrupted.

Christ Jesus was also a Sun Hero and was conceived as such in the first centuries of Christianity. His birth festival was, therefore, placed at the time of year when, since primeval days, the birthday of the Sun Hero has been celebrated. This is also the reason for all that was linked with the life story of Christ Jesus. The Midnight Mass, which the first Christians celebrated in caves, was in memory of the Sun Festival. In this Mass an ocean of light streamed forth at midnight out of the darkness as a memory of the rising sun in the Mysteries. Christ was thus born in a cave in remembrance of the cave of rock out of which, symbolized in the growing stalks of grain, life was born. Earthly life was born out of the dead stone. So, too, out of the lowly, the Highest, Christ Jesus, was born!

Thus, in the meaning of the Christmas Festival, we feel something echoing to us from the most ancient ages of mankind, and it has come down to us in the special coloring of Christianity. In its symbols we find images for the most ancient symbols of mankind. The Christmas tree with its candles is one of them. For us, it is a symbol of the Tree of Paradise, which represents all of material nature. Spiritual nature is represented by the tree in Paradise that encompassed all Knowledge, and by the Tree of Life.

There is a narrative that imparts clearly the significance of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life:

Seth stood at the Gates of Paradise and begged to be allowed to enter. The Archangel guarding the portal let him pass. This is a sign for initiation. Seth, now in Paradise, found the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge closely intertwined. The Archangel Michael, who stands in the presence of God, let him take three seeds from these intertwining trees, which, standing there as a single tree, pointed prophetically to the future of mankind. Then the whole of humanity shall have been initiated and shall have found knowledge. Only the Tree of Life will still exist and death will be no more. For the time being, however, only the initiate may take the three seeds from this Tree, the three seeds that signify the three higher members of man.

When Adam died, Seth placed these three seeds in Adam's mouth, and from them grew a flaming bush. From the wood cut from this bush, new shoots and green leaves continually burst forth. Within the flaming circle of the bush, however, was written, "I am He Who was, Who is, Who is to be." This points to the entity that passes through all incarnations, the force of evolving man repeatedly renewing himself, who descends from light into darkness and ascends from darkness into light.

The rod with which Moses performed his miracles was carved from the wood of the flaming bush. The portal of Solomon's Temple was fashioned from it. This wood was carried to the waters of the pool of Bethesda, and from it the pool derived its power.
From the same wood the Cross of Christ Jesus was fashioned, the wood of the Cross that shows us life passing into death, but which at the same time bears the power in itself to bring forth new life. The great world symbol stands before us here — life, which overcomes death. The wood of this Cross grew out of the three seeds from the Tree of Paradise.

The Rose Cross also expresses this symbol of the death of the lower nature and, springing from it, the resurrection of the higher. Goethe expressed the same thought in the words:

As long as you have not

Died and been reborn,

You are but a gloomy guest

Upon the darkened earth.

What a wondrous connection there is between the Tree of Paradise and the wood of the Cross! Even though the Cross is a symbol of Easter, it also deepens our Christmas mood. We feel in it how the Christ Idea streams toward us in new welling life on this night of Christ's Nativity. This idea is indicated in the living roses that adorn this tree. They tell us that the tree of the Sacred Night has not yet become the wood of the Cross, but the power to become this wood begins to arise in it. The roses that grow from the green symbolize the Eternal that grows from the Temporal.

At this point, Steiner gets into describing a group of geometric shapes and detailing their symbolic significance. He does this with everything--I have a book in which he gives the precise spiritual significance of every single musical interval. I'm cutting most of this, but the last one, the star, is of great interest:

Finally, all that permeates the cosmos is present in man and is symbolized in the pentagram at the top of the tree. The deepest meaning of the pentagram may not now be mentioned, but it is the star of mankind, of mankind developing itself. It is the star that all wise men follow as did the priest-sages in ancient ages.

It symbolizes the earth that is born on the Night of Consecration, because the most sublime light radiates from the deepest darkness. Man lives on toward a state when the light shall be born in him, when one significant saying shall be replaced by another, when it will no longer be said, “The Darkness does not comprehend the Light” but when the truth will resound into cosmic space with the words, “Darkness gives way to the Light that radiates toward us in the Star of Mankind, Darkness yields and comprehends the Light.”

This shall resound from the Christmas celebration, and the spiritual light shall radiate from it. Let us celebrate Christmas as the festival of the most lofty ideal of the Idea of Mankind, so that in our souls may rise the joyful confidence: Indeed, I, too, shall experience the birth of the higher man within myself. The birth of the Savior, the Christos, will take place in me also.

Let us pray: Jesus, we call you to come to us in as many guises as you care to put on. We will look for you in candle flame, in wreaths of red, in decorated trees, and tinsel. Most of all we will seek you in the eyes of our friends. Amen.

Timely Fashions

Timely Fashions

     The definition of a style period consists of a list of commonly held social assumptions. It is the character of these assumptions that defines the era. The people of any time period all share a specific perspective on the changeless all of existence; although the content of this vision is eternally fixed in timelessness, the sequencing of the time dimension creates, for the observer, now this perspective, now that; and the differences in perspective result in unique changes in the experience, interpretation, and expression of reality. The people of any time period will share in a certain a prior conceptual framework, a unique method for:

1. structuring ideas, and
2. verbalizing commonly held social attitudes.

Each phase in the progress, each link in the chain of thought, is forged from and flows out of the thought of its historical predecessor.

I have mentioned, in passing, the idea that many composers have been ahead of the current thinking of their time, while some have been behind their times; very few have been in perfect sync with the spiritual movement of their historical time period. Some few composers, like Beethoven and Verdi, have been capable of expressing, in their best art, a generalized summary of the conceptual world of their eternal present; these summaries, vibrant with archetypal resonance, telescope the moment into an articulate focus of now, and give us a streamlined view of the attitudes and values of an entire age.

This type of "contemporary" artist gains acceptance because he is capable not only of giving the public exactly what they want, but of making the public want what he wants them to want. This is not to say that this would be the artist's conscious goal (or at least his ONLY goal)--that he, like any Hollywood hack, has set out to give the people (whoever they are) some watered down approximation of what they think they want (never all that they are truly capable of)--it is simply to observe that, at certain precise moments in time, it has been possible for the faces the composers and the faces of their audiences at large, to be all turned in the same direction; all seeking after that same ineffable truth contained in that same set of articulate collective expressions.

In the collective mind resides all truth, expressed in all possible configurations of subjectively and objectively oriented media; but the collective mind is also in a constant state of flux, revolving on an axis which exposes, to nearest view, first this configuration of articulate expressions, now that one. The collective mind is not opaque nor obtuse, it merely IS, in its current state of revolution, on its infinitely turning axis, aligned at a certain time to expose a certain constellation of conceptual entities, and at a different time a different constellation. The essential truth always comes out the same, but the character of the expression, the mask of the truth, must vary from age to age. When the composer's vision and the majority's vision is the same--well, you do the math.

     Many other composers find their personal vision at odds with their own time; these are the misunderstood composers, the outcasts, the geniuses who march to a different drummer, and who achieve varying levels of professional success in exact proportion to how FAR OFF the mark they are. This out-of-syncness happens because of an inherent danger in any clearly defined style: any style can make a creator lazy; the cliches out of which the style is made tend to relieve the creator of the responsibility of reaching deep inside himself for the cosmic interpretation of the archetypal symbols; for the hack composer it is enough to parrot back the stylistic patterns without deep consideration of their abstract relationships to each other. Stylistic fashion has always been a substitute for real effort.

In the following quotation from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, the demon comments on the spiritual significance of fashion:

"The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later , when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed agains the dangers of the mere "understanding." Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

But the greatest triumph of all is to elevate this horror of the Same Old Thing into a philosophy so that nonsense in the intellect may reinforce corruption in the will. It is here that the general Evolutionary or Historical character of modern European thought (partly our work) comes in so usefully. The Enemy love platitudes."

"The Enemy love platitudes."! I love it. The archetypal symbol suffused with spiritual radiance, a platitude! Ha! No attentive mind would make so insensitive a reductio ad absurdum. And yet inattention in the search for the truly anomalous now, yields as vapid a product as insensitivity to "platitudes."

My son has urged me many times to shorten these blog entries by breaking them up into pieces. I finally think that's a good idea. We will continue this discussion next week with a look at some composers who were unstuck in time.

Glennallen
March 29, 2011