Year's End, And All's Not Well

It’s Christmas and some things are wrong. In a season of goodwill, where Christians celebrate the story of a little baby born in a stable, thousands of souls are homeless, and thousands of children need food and shelter. Not just for today, but in their lives. We think nothing of taking care of a child’s needs: how are adults different? An adult who cannot look out for themselves needs to be helped, regardless of whether their inability is due to mental or physical disability, or a really bad string of luck. The stories a person tells, or the irritating things they do, don’t sway us from helping children. We aren’t offended when a three-year-old screams, “I hate you,” But an alcoholic adult is on their own, for some reason, is too much trouble. Jesus cared for, and ministered to, the most unfortunate in society. Why can’t we do the same?

I mean the question as more than a rhetorical one. On an unusually balmy morning, my mom and I went to the quaint little Mt Vernon shopping district to soak up some holiday atmosphere. The streets were quiet, even though most stores were open. It seemed that most of the holiday shopping was done. And sharing the street with us was a sober, kind-looking brown-skinned young man, wearing several layers of clothing, a tie-died floppy hat, and a huge backpack. He watched us walk by. We went into a store. We emerged, and he walked next to us for a while. I felt his eyes on me. We ignored him. I could feel myself retreating into a certain prim oblivion: I am at ease on this street. I do not see the man in transit, the man who is looking for nothing, the man who might need help on Christmas Eve.

Travelers at the inn. In the Old Testament, welcoming travelers who turn out to be angels. Over and over, through various means, the message is clear: virtue lies in helping the less fortunate. These are meant to be taken seriously, as guidelines for life. If we don’t bring the myths into our lives, what do they mean.

We ignored him. And we went to go buy a chicken to roast. The natural foods co-op was packed with people who had turned their minds to the culinary side of the holiday. 2006 calendars are on sale. Here’s one for the Tibetan’s Nun Project. Another called “A Simple Monk” celebrates the Dalai Lama. Photos are accented by quotes. His Holiness says: “Once we have enough to live, we must turn and help others.” I put the calendars back on the shelf.

I might have bought the calendar if I’d been feeling flush. But times are very, very tight. I’m living off of credit, which is running out, and running into debt. Just before I left to come to Mt Vernon, however, I had a job interview. It’s nothing glamorous, but it’s a good foray into social services, and satisfies the career-seeking side of myself that contemplates being a therapist or social worker. But what is real right now is: I need money. And this job helps people. So for $8 an hour I am both getting enough to live on, and I am turning and helping others. The way I did not do today.

Another thing that is wrong: the Portland panty bandit is going to be in jail for decades. Because he’s a sick guy who has a thing for women’s undies. Meanwhile, a white collar criminal who did far more damage to society is back on the job. Undismayed by having enough to live on, he kept on going, causing harm in all quarters. With good lawyers on his side, he served very little jail time and is now tangling with the exclusive Multnomah Athletic Club—focus on the “Club”—it’s a networking venue for Portland’s high society, an indoor country club for those who have arrived. Seems jailboy wants the right to rejoin the club, after his criminal activities got him booted out.

Something’s not right here.

Go another level down, and things twist, while injustice is maintained: the panty pilferer is indeed man with a problem. Just look at the over 400,000 pornographic images on his computer hard drive. They’re what got him in jail. Thousands of them depict women being raped, tortured, killed and otherwise debased. It’s enough to make your blood run cold, and to wonder who else might be out there. But the photos of women are not what will put this man behind bars until he’s an old pervert instead of a young one. It’s the eight images involving children, that provide the basis for his conviction and sentencing.

Not to minimize the destruction and tragedy of child pornography, but why is it OK to profit from violent images of women? Again, why are children more sacred than other humans? Why are women on their own in a barren field of social outrage? Isn’t a dead woman as dead as a dead child? A raped and beaten woman as raped and beaten? We assiduously protect the rights of children everywhere not to be turned into sexual objects. Brutalizing women, on the other hand….

So, children, the sacred little things. Sacred enough that child molesters are routinely victimized once they make it to prison. Raped themselves, because rape is so terrible. Does that make sense?

Whatever is going on with our protective attitude toward children, it’s not a rational thing. Somewhere, we identify with the unguarded vulnerability of children. We access our own buried child self that way, and what we fight fiercely to protect is some part of ourselves, witnessed and made real by another person’s life. But we’re not seeing that child. We’re seeing ourself, and we’re mindlessly angry and protective of some part of our self.

Is our unthinking identification with the child so far removed from that of pedophiles, who love children a little too much? Who seek to reclaim what they’ve lost by sexual contact: abused children go up to abuse in turn. There’s some relief, some quest for explanation and psychological resolution that, unexamined, draws them back into the darkness. Failing to understand the traumatized child leads the pedophile to do his thing, and the person who abuses the pedophile to do his thing. Insanity.

Which brings me all the way back to Christmas.

I would like to know: Why do parents, who presumably take their job seriously and want to guard their offspring and instill values—why do parents lie to their children about Santa Claus? Why do they go out of their way to deceive their little ones, and find joy and relief in solidifying the deception for another year?

There must be some reward to it, to go to the effort of taking the kid to the mall, or hiring a Santa to call your home. But it doesn’t make sense. Nobody wants to teach their kid that lying is OK. That going out of your way to perpetuate a lie is OK.

So the reward for being “good”, for following the rules and slowly learning how to be a member of polite society, is to be lied to. Beyond that, there's the lesson that material pleasures are the true reward for upright behavior.

I don’t see what’s wrong with having Christmas be about the birth of a miraculous baby to transient parents who had to rely on the charity of others. I don’t see what’s wrong with families gathering to bless the children in their lives. While we’re at it, perhaps some positive values could be instilled; there’s no merit in a holiday based on deception. No need to deceive children. And no need to deceive ourselves that this is a world where everything is OK. Not when the homeless and luckless are right in front of our faces, and we’re in the midst of holiday focused on a tiny baby who grew to teach the world about charity and goodwill.