12-14-20<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your fault!\u201d \u201cNo! It\u2019s your fault!\u201d \u201cYou started it!\u201d \u201cNo, you did!\u201d<\/p>\n
We hear exchanges like these yelled back and forth in the schoolyard, or playgrounds.<\/p>\n
Or in diplomatic debates. Or on bloody battlefields.<\/p>\n
Humankind seems not to have \u201cadvanced\u201d much through the centuries; and neither between childhood and adulthood. We congratulate each other, and fool ourselves, that \u201cprogress\u201d is the hallmark of our times. Yet the bloodiest death toll from wars, in any century of the earth\u2019s existence, was in the Twentieth Century. We brag that we \u2013 \u201ccivilizations\u201d \u2013 have finally ended the scourge of slavery; yet there is greater slavery today than ever in human history. The numbers now are not the faces that flash in our minds, but children, women, minorities, homeless, voiceless, migrants, the anonymous.<\/p>\n
As long as there are power elites; as long as greed outpaces love; as long as hypocrisy can always find a better name, humankind will be (in the Bible\u2019s phrase, Proverbs 26:11; II Peter 2:22) like dogs returning to their vomit. Think about what changes have occured, really, when science develops new ways to save lives\u2026 as it also invents new ways to end lives. What a spectacle, when people march to save baby seals and whales, and march for the right to kill babies.<\/p>\n
Well, Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n
Is society\u2019s spoken wish of the season an empty phrase, or is there a spark of hope when we manage to pause, or think, or sing, or worship around the meaning of that word, that concept \u2013 God With Us.<\/p>\n
Once it was manifested, only briefly, in a unique setting; and it is largely forgotten by history. Do you know about the Christmas Truce, a virtual miracle during the first Christmas of the \u201cGreat War,\u201d World War I, surely the most useless of history\u2019s many useless wars?<\/p>\n
It was only a few months after war was declared in Europe, by almost every great and tiny nation. But by Christmas almost a million soldiers were already slaughtered. In trenches that were to become so established that for more than two years the battle line never moved more than 30 miles one way or another, a miracle did occur.<\/p>\n
Minor details differ but the dispositive facts are acknowledged: Peace broke out.<\/p>\n
Soldiers of Germany, England (Scotland, actually), and France, at night, spontaneously sang Christmas carols\u2026 and were joined by \u201cenemies\u201d who could hear across No Man\u2019s Land\u2026 nervous soldiers climbed from trenches to greet their foes, and shake hands\u2026 gifts were exchanged, even little trinkets, but also pastries and wine from home\u2026 they shared pictures of wives and children\u2026 more hymn singing\u2026 fireworks, intended to illuminate battlefields to focus cannons, were now shot skyward in celebration\u2026 tentative, but successful, attempts to communicate.<\/p>\n
Of course they communicated. The languages that night were hymns and Bibles and chocolates and cigars. Handshakes and smiles and tears.<\/p>\n
A Merry Christmas. A Holy Christmas. Peace on earth\u2026 at least in that narrow 27-mile-long battle line, south of Ypres and east of Armentieres, site of the song about les Mademoiselles<\/em>, that night.<\/p>\n A British soldier recalled the Christmas Truce almost two decades later: We stuck up a board with a Merry Christmas on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. \u2026 Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.<\/em><\/p>\n We and the Germans met in the middle of No Man\u2019s Land. Their officers were also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. \u2026 One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn\u2019t the only one that was fed up with it<\/em>. (Frank Richards, \u201cOld Soldiers Never Die,\u201d 1933)<\/p>\n Another history records: [The British] Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker issued a directive forbidding fraternization: \u201cFor it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks. \u2026 Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.\u201d<\/em> (Stanley Weintraub, \u201cSilent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce,\u201d 2001)<\/p>\n How much different would the world be today \u2013 how much different even the next day<\/em>, back then \u2013 if the Truce had held? And please note that chocolates and cigars were only the presents<\/em>. The GIFTS<\/em> were hymns and Bible verses \u2013 they<\/em> brought the soldiers out of trenches; not the prospect of snacks or a soccer game in the snow.<\/p>\n Christmas. God did not intend for Jesus\u2019s incarnation, the spirit of that Christmas Truce, to be a one-time miracle, but to be everyday life<\/em>.<\/p>\n He intended that we know-and-show that love and fellowship can be normal, not rare.<\/p>\n We can be changed by the Holy Day, not be annoyed by another holiday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou started it!\u201d \u201cNo, you did!!!\u201d Wouldn\u2019t it be great if we all exchanged those words happily, about starting love, sharing affection, and living in Heavenly Peace?<\/p>\n Who \u201cstarted it\u201d? God did.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n Please do not cheat yourself of watching a moving and superb movie clip dramatizing that Christmas Truce.<\/p>\n