Fr. Larry Hart
The Light of Creation Is the Light of Bethlehem
As I begin to write it is Christmas Eve morning. It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining right now at 9:00 A.M., and the beauty of the sun glinting off of tree, and grass, and flower, and the tile roof tops “makes me,” as John Denver said of sunshine on his shoulder, “happy.” But when I took Jack for his walk at sunrise with the wind blowing and rain falling, I also felt happy as I paused for my first prayer of the day, because the clouds, and the wind, and the falling rain are also beautiful and therefore an immense joy to me. I believe that if I am open and attentive to it there is beauty in everything––absolutely everything. I am utterly convinced that both John Keats and Robinson Jeffers were entirely correct: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever;” and “In the invulnerable beauty of things we see the face of God.” And I believe that the Christmas light is the light that shone at creation and in the life of Jesus and enlightens the heart of everyone who welcomes it.
A Night Message
However, the first time I woke up this Christmas Eve morning at 3:15 A.M. I was not thinking about beauty, but about anger. I think maybe that was because Brenda and I watched the George C. Scott’s film version of Charles Dickens’s Scrooge right before going to bed. The character of Scrooge, you may remember is not only incredibly greedy and miserly, but also saturated with anger and resentment. At any rate, I woke from a dream I cannot now really remember other than the looping thought that the whole world, like Scrooge in his drab, empty, and cold house, is shriveling and slowly dying from toxic anger; and, that Christmas is the antidote.
A World Mired in Anger and Hostility
I try not to read too many internet news articles, (I have a small brain and it is easily filled with junk), but I do browse headlines. What I notice is how many of them have to do with how violent and angry people are––in politics, in sports and entrainment, in business, in just everyday life. The headlines attempt to hook us into reading the full story or opinion by using the highly charged language of anger, much of it vulgar and violent sexual language––the same language I hear angry people yelling at each other on the street or couples shouting at each other in counseling. It is as if our culture is so enraged, so addicted to anger, it has runout of words capable of expressing the intensity of its collective fury. Be that as it may, there is, in my opinion, no word in the English language more violent than that four-letter word beginning with “F.” I don’t know. Maybe humanity is devolving.
A Useful Tool and a Dangerous Corrosive
The anger in us can range from mild irritation to full-blown rage. It may pass quickly or settle into fixed resentment. It is, of course, normal to experience anger. Like anxiety anger helps us to mobilize our resources for action. It is part of our flight-fight response––our human survival mechanism. At times anger is the appropriate response to a particular situation or the actions of others. For example, it can become the catalyst for peace and social justice work. Anger can, then, like a hammer, be a useful tool, but if it is your only tool that’s a problem. When anger becomes chronic, even when it is like a difficult to diagnosis low grade infection, it is corrosive and damages the body, mind, and soul.
For some people hostility seems to take over their life and becomes a personality trait. Whether we think of anger as a psychological or spiritual disorder it is easily recognized as involving beliefs that others are unworthy or that they are likely to be sources of frustration. Angry people tend to be suspicious, cynical, jealous, and bitter. They also tend to evaluate others harshly, are slower to make positive judgments, less forgiving, and frequently hold even those they love to impossible standards.”
The list of ways chronic anger can affect a person’s well-being, and even put the health of others in jeopardy, is long. Research links it to anxiety, depression, obesity, low self-esteem, sexual performance problems, increased heart attack risk, unfulfilling and unsatisfying relationships, a higher probability of abusing others emotionally or physically or both, high blood pressure, stroke, migraines, and drug and alcohol addiction. It can even reduce the bodies immunity to disease.
The saying of the Apostle Paul is often quoted to show that it is not anger itself but what we do with it that matter: “In your anger do not sin,” wrote Paul (Ephesians 4:6). In 2 Corinthians 10:1 the word translated as “gentleness” (prautes) was defined by Aristotle as the balance between being too angry and never being angry at all. To be gentle in this sense is to be angry at the right thing or person, at the right time and place, for the right reason, and to a reasonable degree. To be angry in this way requires both a great deal of emotional maturity and spiritual wisdom.
Christmas Is the Antidote
In my dream Christmas was given as the effective antidote to chronic anger, hostility, and resentment which meant specifically the Christmas message as given in the nativity narrative of the Gospel According to Saint Luke.
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angels, praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.
(Luke 2:13-14)
Several brief observations on these lines may be helpful in explaining my dream:
First: Praise is the natural response of any being, angelic or human, who has experienced, encountered, or known the presence of God. To praise is to acknowledge with both heart and mind that God is not only to be praised but is praiseworthy. It is to acknowledge that God is that power immeasurably greater that ourselves who alone can bring sanity and serenity to our lives.
Second: Biblically the word “glory,” doxa in the Greek, refers to a bright, dazzling light which is indicative of the presence of God––the God of highest heaven. As a word of praise it would be somewhat like shouting: “The light of God,” or “The shining of God.” Many people who have had a near death experience describe it as an overwhelming sense of peace and well-being. It is like, they have said, encountering a “light”–– a living entity radiating tremendous love, acceptance, and warmth. They report feeling enveloped by this light or loving presence and that it permeates their being.
Third: Among the ancient Hebrews “peace” or “shalom” is used as both a greeting and farewell. It is actually a blessing. It is like saying to the other person may God grant you everything you truly need for your life to be whole and complete––everything you need for your total well-being. But notice how this hymn, known as the Gloria Excelsis, is the announcement of the birth of Jesus. That’s the context of this whole second chapter of Luke. The peace of God is not a psychological technique or a theological concept like you might find in the latest book by a celebrity theologian or self-help lecturer, but rather the peace of God is a person––the peace of God, the angels are saying, is an infant sleeping in a stable in Bethlehem.
Fourth: Notice the phrase: “those God favors.” The peace of God, the perfect and complete harmony of life found only in Christ who is our peace, rests this night and forever on those God favors; God’s favor, or grace, is in one sense universal, covers the whole earth, while in another sense its rests, or is upon those who see it, hear, feel it, and respond in love and gratitude. A simple loving response to the presence of Christ as the peace of God has the power to reorient our entire existence.
Now, hold these four observations in mind while at the same time remembering how Jesus taught the inwardness of spiritual religion:
What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.
(Mark 7:20-23)
Putting It All Together
When I put all of this together––the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Jesus’s teaching on the inwardness of spiritual religion, the biblical understanding of spirituality as the personal presence of God; and Saint Paul’s mystical wisdom in Ephesians 2:14-22 (“Christ is our peace. Christ’s message was peace. And if we are in Christ, we will have peace in us and become a dwelling in which God as the Holy Spirit lives.”) becomes, when I consider it all together, what I believe to be the meaning of my dream.
Henry David Thoreau was correct, “The masses of humanity live lives of quiet desperation.” Most people, in spite of their vociferous denial, live fractured and pointless lives, controlled by fear and anger they are estranged and alienated from themselves, from others, and from the deeper currents of life. They believe they can wring happiness from life if they manage events and people around them effectively. But life is riddled with strange twists and turns and uncanny contingencies. Events elude our control and people resent and resist our attempts at manipulation. When things don’t go as we wanted or planned, we become frustrated, angry, and resentful. The more our hostility grows the more out of synchronization with reality we become. But the mysterious light, and life, and love of God has, not metaphorically but in every actuality, entered the world known and inhabited by humankind, making it possible for those on watch (most often in the cold and dark) to see, and hear, and welcome this Divine power and presence of Bethlehem, to discover a new liberation, a gracious redemption––freedom from things like compulsive anger, toxic resentments, and the inner malice hidden even to themselves. How else can we respond but, “Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth!”