Tristero has a post up at Hullabaloo that touches, at least in part, in some things that I've been thinking about ever since slightly before Samhein.
I got to thinking around Samhein, which is a serious religious holiday for me, that we've got an interesting situation in this country that results from overlaps between secular and religious holidays. I think it started way back when the xians attempted to appropriate Pagan holidays and then got worse when the corporatists attempted to make money off of purported xian holidays.
Consider Samhein. It's an old Pagan holiday, one of the holiest days on the Pagan calendar. The xians came along and tried to appropriate this holiday, traditionally celebrated on October 31st, by establishing All Soul's Day on November 1st. Just when the Pagans celebrated a time when they could communicate with and honor their beloved dead, the xians were "celebrating" a time to pray for their own beloved dead. Overlayered, on top of that, I think, that there's a secular holiday called Halloween that relates to death by making it funny and ok and harmless, which serves a deep psychological need and involves an opportunity for the corporatists to make money: they can sell candy, costumes, yard decorations, cards, magazines telling women how to carve cute pumpkins, pumpkins, and pumpkin-carving supplies. With an influx of Hispanics, there's been an incorporation of a partly-xian/partly-Pagan holiday known as Day of the Dead. There's lots of overlap -- good Pagan that i am, I bought raven-shaped candle holders, multiple pumpkins, little tiny pails with black cats on them to hold candy, and incense to burn for my ancestors. I'm determined next year to make little decorated sugar skulls, as well.
Easter is another example. The xians imposed it on top of Eostara. Now, there's a corporatist, secular holiday at the same time of year, designed to sell nice clothing, pretty baskets, chocolate, and plush stuffed bunnies, almost none of which have almost anything to do with either holiday, although, to me, they seem to have more to do with the Pagan holiday than with the xian holiday. And, although most xians will tell you that Easter is a more important holiday for them than is xmas, the emotional intensity surrounding the two holidays shows that this is a lie.
Xmas is intensified because, I think, the corporatists view xmas as one of their prime money-making opportunities. The xians sense a weakness and hope to exploit it in order to ensure, in their goal to establish a theocracy, that their vision of the holiday is the only "legitimate" one allowed. Hence the completely-self-created War on Xmas, of Bill O'Reilley fame.
Many, many, many Pagan peoples celebrated (and continue to celebrate) the Winter Solstice, the day when the days are shortest and the nights are longest, or, depending upon how you look at it, the time when the days (light) begin to grow and nights (darkness) begin to shrink. For European Pagans, this was the time when the Holly King died and the Oak King was reborn. Not surprisingly, when they were struggling for acceptance and legitimacy, the xians selected a date less than a week away from the Winter Solstice to celebrate the birth of their King, a child of light who would die and be reborn in the Spring. They did one of the few things that I really appreciate about xians: they wrote some lovely music, although they couldn't have predicted how wretched it would be after being turned to muzak and played over and over for ninety days in a row. Handel is one of my great loves, and I don't care how pedestrian that makes me. Puritans seemed to want to move away from Pagan celebrations at this time of year, but, gradually, most xian churches have accepted this holiday as one of their major holidays.
Then, again, on top of that, you have a corporatist holiday that celebrates the buying of many commercial items and seeks to perpetuate this myth of the perfect xmas -- no matter how lovely (expensive) your xmas tree, how munificent (expensive) your gift-giving, how sumptuous (expensive) your xmas brunch and dinner, how tasteful (expensive) the cards that you send to people who you only speak to once a year, etc., you can never live up to the "xmas ideal." Especially women, who can never bake enough cookies, be pretty enough at the holiday parties, or create a perfect enough xmas for their families, which, it turns out, big surprise, is their job.
When you think about it, few of the "symbols of xmas" have much at all to do with the birth in Bethlehem of Jesus of Nazareth. A jolly old elf from the Scandinavians, snow men, sleigh bells and choo choo trains from the Victorians, a fir tree covered in lights left over from the Pagans, an exchange of gifts left over from the Romans -- Jesus of Nazareth,
via Bethlehem,
via Egypt, wouldn't understand what those things had to do with his birth. And the answer is really, they have nothing to do with his birth. They are, in some cases, holdovers from the Pagan celebration of the solstice and, in other cases, corporatist carryovers from Victorian times, with the corporatists making endless yearly additions in the hope that something will "stick," whether it's a rock & roll version of The Little Drummer Boy or the need to purchase a DVD of It's A Wonderful Life. BTW, have you given an xmas party this year? Or bought enough pretty dresses for al the xmas parties that you'll need to go to? Want to buy some perfume? Need your hair done?
Tucked in, kind of as an aside to the corporatist, secular xmas celebration is Hanukkah, a minor Jewish celebration at roughly the same time of the year, generally acknowledged as a way to try and get Jews to buy a bunch of stuff at the same time that everyone else is supposed to be out buying stuff. After all, can't have those children feeling hurt when, after a solid 90 days of advertising, they don't get any presents! Everyone's included in the corporatist holiday!
All of which would be sort of ok, and would make sense on a small, diverse planet ruled by corporatists, if the xians didn't, as they so often do, get their panties in a twist and demand that the end of December is THEIR holiday and everyone must celebrate it THEIR Way. ~Sigh~ The corporatists are then forced to join in,
see, e.g., O'Reilley's War on Xmas, in order to ensure their continued sales. That's how protection rackets work.
A religious holiday cum secular holiday then becomes a way to beat up on disfavored groups and to impose theocracy on all the rest of us.
Triestero notes that
"the term 'christianism' seems finally to have caught on to describe the political movement that exploits Christian symbols for secular gain." Further, it describes
the political exploitation of religious symbolism and belief. To be blunt, I find it immoral that anyone would dare to corrupt the religious impulse - which, for so many, is crucial to their understanding of their lives - for cheap, secular, partisan gain. I'm talking Pat Robertson here, Jerry Falwell, followers of Rousas Rushdoony, Joseph Morehead, Randall Terry[,] and the whole sick crew of sleazy political operatives eagerly working to wreck the American system of government and establish a theocracy.
They deserve no respect, no quarter, whatsoever. It is very important to understand that whatever their personal beliefs - which are all but unknowable - they have made it clear through their public statements that they are dangerous political extremists who have celebrated the virtue of their intolerance on numerous occasions. Some have gone out of their way to excuse, advocate[,] or even perpetrate murderous violence in the name of their utterly sick beliefs. They have generously funded elaborate efforts to undermine science with sophisticated marketing campaigns to teach cruddy lies to science students.
And they have blasphemously used the cross and other religious symbols as if they were trying to ward off vampires in a cheesy horror film. They degrade the cross, a symbol beloved and honored by millions who have nothing in common with these people. And they do so not to affirm their religious beliefs, whatever they may be, but in the most cynical fashion, merely to counter legitimate expressions of outrage at their hateful behavior or ideas.
For all these reasons, I think it is crucial that a distinction be made between the expression of religion and its political exploitation. Therefore, a few years ago, I proposed the term "christianism" to distinguish the political movement from Christianity. I urged others to adopt it. Other terms have been proposed such as Michelle Goldberg's "Christian Nationalism" but I like the parallels between "christianism" and "islamism."I guess that all of this is bubbling to the top for me as a result of Grandon's wonderful arrival on the scene this year. His parents, Son and D-i-L, aren't, as far as I can tell, at all religious, but enjoy lots of aspects of the secular xmas holiday and are eager to see Grandson smile with pleasure at the pretty lights, beautifully-wrapped gifts, and silly Santa Clauses all over the place. His other grandparents, lovely people and good Southern Baptists who also deeply enjoy the secular, corporatist holiday, are eager to establish a tradition where all of us -- Son, D-i-L, Grandson, the First Ex-Mr. Hecate, his husband, and Hecate -- all get together and enjoy Grandson at the secular holiday. I'm having to sort all this out for myself, all over again. Xmas is a doubly-loaded holiday for me, not only due to my antagonism to both the xian and the corporatist holiday, but also due to several traumatic family events closely-related to December 25th. And so, I'm struggling to figure out where I stand, what I can do in the name of family unity and peace, and what I can't tolerate. How much I can "go along to get along" and how much do my own beliefs require me to stand down. Where do my personal, religious, political, and family obligations conflict and where can they meet each other half way?
This year, my coven is thinking of a "family event" to go along with our traditional all-night-long ritual, capped by making noise at sunrise to remind the sun (the light) to come back again and warm the Earth, followed by schnapps in shot glasses made of ice, followed by a huge breakfast, followed by collapse, and I think I'd like Son and D-i-L to bring Grandson to see how I celebrate the season. Can I as happily watch him go to the Baptist church w/ his other grandma to see how she celebrates it? I think so. I decided the moment that he was born to trust this kid. And I think I'll drag him to my firm's children's holiday party, for the picture on Santa's lap, if for nothing else. (OK, yes, and to show him off. You cannot imagine the wattage of this kid's smile. I'd say that even if I weren't his Nonna. Really.)
And I'll keep living, as I have my entire adult life, half in the "real" world of my Paganism and half in the secular world and half in the world of my lovely, patchwork, kind, and wonderful family. Sometimes the balance shifts in one direction, sometimes it shifts in another. Hopefully, it always shifts away from christianism.
What will you do?
