Merry Christmas

Source: Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

For most of the western world Christmas is that one time of the year when it’s OK to drop the angst, sing Silent Night with the enemy, tolerate the obnoxious relies and even wish the pagan masses well. So, why can’t it last all year round? Why is it that we can suspend our hatred for 24 hours but not for the rest of the year…unless we win Lotto? Why? Because on Christmas Day someone who was born roughly 2,000 years ago gives us permission to be nice. A man who, by example, taught us that love is the only currency worth investing, even unwisely. It’s certainly a very high-risk investment if we’re expecting obvious returns. However, there is a subtle dividend – for whatever reason, when we love others, even the ones who hate us (like that maiden Aunt who glowers at us over the punch bowl every Christmas) … for some peculiar reason we feel rich. Bizarre? Right? I mean what are we actually getting in return? Squat for the most part. But we feel rich! We feel calm. We feel good about ourselves. Damn it, we feel special and a tad superior to the people who keep hating and being bitter about a past they cannot change. My grandmother was a violinist. She played a magnificent instrument and created a tone I have never heard replicated. She claimed the molecules in her violin had realigned themselves over the years in tune with her passion for music and the particles of the wood vibrated in harmony, intensifying the resonance. I have no idea if her theory was ever scientifically tested but I can vouch for the fact that her tone was unique. I wonder if love realigns the molecules of our bodies in such a way that we become a conduit for the music of our souls. It’s only a theory but one thing I know for sure people filled with love are magnets to those in pain. I wish Christmas lasted all year. I wish we could learn the patience and tolerance we muster every Christmas and extend it to those troubled souls who only hear hatred’s blast. I wish.