Opinion/Brown: Remembering what and who we really are at Christmas
Seen in its simplest form, life is a tube. The tube is forever looking for something to eat. Into one end of the tube goes all the stuff of this world and by the time it reaches the other end, the tube has extracted everything of use.
To the materialist, life is an alimentary canal. Everything is a product for consumption. The tube starts to move around — and finds food faster. The tube develops senses — and finds food even better. What is intelligence for but to protect the tube and boost consumption? All this activity wears tubes out, so they learn how to make more. There will always be tubes.
Here’s the thing. In the balance of nature, consuming from the food chain and becoming nourishment for others is supposed to be in balance. When I was a school teacher, I’d draw a Yin-Yang on the blackboard. Then I’d draw two fish-like creatures circling each other, their open mouths ready to devour the tails of the other. If you do it right, it resembles a Yin-Yang — sort of.
Consumption — and making more tubes. To the materialist, it all comes down to these two things. You want to hear something funny? Tubes begin to understand their mortality and imagine when they die, some invisible essence of themselves will survive for eternity. They think there are gods — and the gods love nothing so much as a tube.
Here’s where such cynicism gets you. We’ve created a material world based solely on extraction: plants, animals, water, minerals — all extracted from nature and stuffed down the maw of a tube so vast nature itself is disappearing into it. And garbage is coming out. It’s been estimated that the world’s oceans contain more plastics than the biomass of everything left alive in them.
Meanwhile, there are other people whose point of view is spiritual. They may study the evolution of tubes in school, but they know that while consumption is true, it is not the truth about life. For them, in the beginning, there was the soul. The tube is the invention of the soul. Slowly, tubes begin searching for sentience. They begin to see, hear, think. Finally, they can see themselves and remember who they really are. Substance is animated by the soul, and informed by the soul as well as sense. And as the substance becomes spiritually informed, it is reminded of God. It is stunned with humility and gratitude that God can love a tube.
It’s all about love. Without compassion, religions are just dusty bags of propositions about God. Stripped of compassion, faith has repeatedly led us into the worst sorts of behavior. We can cry into the night sky for some affirmation that our existence matters, but meanwhile, love is the power that turns the soul into substance and sings us all into being.
The critical points in the calendars of every faith remind us that we are essentially spiritual creatures. We’re supposed to question this, to ask ourselves once in a while whether we actually believe it. If we really are spiritual beings, then we cannot be here just to live the life of a tube.
Christmas is supposed to be a roadblock in the path of Christians. Other faiths set up roadblocks of their own. The priest, the rabbi, the guru come up and tap on our windows. “Christmas,” they say … “Yom Kippur" … "Ramadan" … we’re just doing a reality check, you know — to see whether you think you’re a soul or a tube.”
You see, it’s not just about Christmas; it’s about every day. If we truly believe we’re spiritual beings, we’re supposed to act like more than tubes. If the materialists are right, then spiritual faith is a joke and consumption is all there is. Even love might only be a form of consumption in disguise. If that’s their vision, they’re welcome to it.
Meanwhile, it’s my deep pleasure to rejoice with Christians in their seasonal affirmation that they’re more than tubes … that we are loved and are free to love each other. When my daily life included children in my classroom, someone would always ask very tactfully, knowing my personal theology was more Eastern, whether it was still OK to wish me a Merry Christmas. And I would happily reply that I was glad Jesus was born. I was as a child. I am now. Amen to that — and Merry Christmas to you.
Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion: It’s not just about Christmas it’s about how we act every day
