Month: December 2018

CThis is Christmas Eve Day if you celebrate Christmas. When I was growing up, there were two kinds of families with respect to Christmas, those who opened their presents Christmas Eve and those who did so Christmas morning. The former kind of family must have moved past the Santa phase. The latter counted on the time after the kids went to bed to tackle “Some Assembly Required” presents. The Whites were confirmed Christmas morning celebrants.

Over my 71 years, I have been blessed with countless Christmas presents; ones that last and don’t require any assembly. I’ll open a few here this Christmas Eve to demonstrate that old dogs can learn new tricks.

First among them is the collection of memories from my growing up.  Mom loved to tell two stories every year about Christmas and me: as a six-month old, I allegedly let out my first real belly laugh when I saw my sister, Sandee, descend the stairs dressed as an angel for a play; a couple of years later, after opening a pile of presents, apparently I cried that I was getting too many.

Laughing “at” my sister rather than “with” her actually makes me sound unwittingly mean. Protesting over getting too much makes me sound unreasonably angelic. I don’t think Mom intended either but she sure enjoyed her stories.  Her annual re-telling of such family myths is a fresh present in my mind’s eye every year.

So are her Christmas trees dripping with tinsel and lit with lights the size of night light bulbs, always colored, never clear. We would find strands of tinsel in the living room into March! Mom was fine with replicating that tree every year, too. Dad’s role was to place the angel on the top of the tree, an adornment that got pretty dirty over nearly 50 years of use.

There was the year when a young woman serving Dad’s church as a youth pastor spent Christmas with us, her family distant in the Midwest. When she opened one particular package, she began to cry. That was the first time I remember seeing a grown-up cry tears of joy, as I was told they were, although…

The second present is big, and didn’t big packages always carry a specialness?  Inside are times Judy and I have shared. As members of the San Diego High School Choir, we sang at the Hotel Del Coronado as diners enjoyed their Christmas Eve dinners.  That was a date for us! We also learned how tough it is to sing when nobody is really paying attention.

There is the Christmas on Mt. Vernon Avenue when our house was burglarized, and the thieves took all of the presents from under the tree. Ha! The joke was on them, maybe. Some (ranging from a few in Judy’s version of the story and most in mine) of the packages were empty, trick presents. So, all the bad guys got was a box, some wrapping paper, and a bow, several times over. (Judy’s story is probably more accurate but way less satisfying in a very uncharitable way.)

Christmas 1968, we were living in Seattle as a year as grad students. On Christmas Eve, as the Apollo astronauts circled the moon on TV, we worked with Jim and Joann Richards on the “Some Assembly Required” gifts for their three boys.  Jim’s parents, Lorene and Gene, were watching and encouraging.  Just recalling Lorene and Gene is always a gift.  That their great-grandson just graduated last week from the University of Hawaii, Manoa with Jim, Joanne, their daughter-in-law, Teresa, and one of those boys, Dan, (now a dad himself) in attendance was this year’s refreshment of a treasured story.

How about Christmas Eve in London and Christmas Day in Nairobi in 1985? Or the Christmas Eve candlelight services over the years, or the year our very tall Christmas tree, fully decorated, fell over one night?

Judy and I never got into the tinsel habit.  Early in our married life, we bought some plastic snowflakes, clear enough to let light through them, giving the illusion of many more lights on the tree than were actually there.  We have put up a tree again this year, and there are still enough of the snowflakes to cover it.  We also made some ornaments ourselves as we were just starting out.  They, too, now adorn this year’s tree.

I have written before about that moment of pure grace we shared with Mom and Chad and Sandee in the car on a chilly Christmas Eve waiting to go into the church service listening to Ke’ali’i Reichel’s Christmas album. Count that as most precious.

That night is a part of the third present, an audio one.  Christmas music, some ancient, some modern, some sacred, some not. We enjoyed three Christmas concerts this year. We have nearly as many Christmas CDs as the number of years we have been married, and each one has the effect of putting us in specific times of our lives. Writing holiday greeting cards to people we have not seen in a while, listening to those CDs, is an exercise in the joy of remembering, opening a trove of treasure.

People of a Certain Age, you have your own presents under your own trees if you celebrate Christmas.  And if you do not celebrate Christmas (most of the world does not), there is still a gift we can all share. When else do we make such a fuss over light and love?

Daniel E. White

December 24, 2018

Common Threads

“…a believer in God does not allow his brother or sister to go hungry or live in unfortunate condition…” “Whosoever believes in God and the last day, let him not harm or annoy his neighbor…” “Worship God and join none with him in worship, and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, the poor, the neighbor who is near of kin who is a stranger, the companion by your side, the wayfarer (you meet)…Verily, God does not like such as are proud and boastful.”(Quran 4:36)

“Love thy neighbor as thyself; do not do to others what thou would not wish to be done to thyself; Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke God in his behalf. Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. (Confucius)

“The full scope of the law of this faith tradition requires believers to protect their fellow man. Believers are commanded not to leave a condition that may cause harm, to construct homes in ways that will prevent people from being harmed, and to help a person whose life is in danger, so long as it does not put the life of the believer in danger.  These commandments are so important that they override all of the ritual observations that people think are the most important part of the faith. Almost any commandment may be violated to save a life.” (Judaism 101: Love and Brotherhood website)

The way to happiness is to keep your heart free from hate,your mind from worry. Live simply, give much. Fill your life with love. Do as you would be done by. Sometimes, it is better to be kind than right. If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.  (Guatama Buddha)

“A staunch devotee had undertaken a prolonged fast to empower himself spiritually.  When he was about to break his fast, God appeared to him in the forms of starving mendicants and begged him for food and water. Even before he broke his fast, the devotee distributed whatever food and water was available to him and said that, since all are God’s children, the food must nourish everyone.” “Love of neighbor is a fundamental requirement fora believer who aspires for final liberation from this world.” “One should not do unto others that which would cause pain if afflicted on oneself.”(Mahabharata 5:15;17)

“And who is my neighbor?” “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him,and departed, leaving him half-dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite,when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine;then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper,saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’” ‘Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed mercy on him.’ “Go and do likewise.’”  (Luke 10: 29-37)

It is not necessary to know what priestly obligations are or what a Levite was or how the Samaritans were regarded by the people to whom the story was being told. The rightness of the action speaks for itself. As the Buddha said “sometimes it is better to be kind than right.” What a gift it is when being kind is the right thing to do.

The commandments, admonitions, and stories above represent the major faith traditions of the world. They articulate beliefs expected of adherents of the faith. In general, they are counter to the messages to which we are subjected from those who can only see themselves as having exclusive access to The Truth.

People of a Certain Age, we have lived a while.  We know history.  We have shed the naivete that hopes all people will get along all the time. Those people in history articulating the religious principles above were not naïve, either. None suggest that any of us is perfect.  They all lay out paths we mortals could follow should we choose to move toward perfection.

The six faith traditions above grew out of historical and philosophical circumstances unique to place and time.  They have articulated common, not identical,threads. We can hope for, and aspire to, more understanding about these threads and how they comprise the fabric of humanity, in the past, now, and for all time. The believers in these faith traditions will forever be touching different parts of the elephant (remember the poem, “The Blind Men of Hindustan?”).  Perhaps after we depart this life, we will see the whole elephant and understand. I hope so.

For now, as Ellen DeGeneres has said, “why can’t we all get along and just judge each other by the kinds of cars we drive?”

Daniel E. White

December 10, 2018