A peaceful Christmas

To the burning question on everyone’s mind is if mince pies were a Christmas ‘thing’ before the Christmas tree? Fair point, why would you not be asking this? Well maybe you are in the throes of finishing term, prepping for carol services, writing reports and making sure children take all their belongings home…

Of course you may be sorting out your child’s sports bag and finding a variety of other children’s apparel has made it to your washing machine. Hey ho, it is all part of the end of term and run up to Christmas. You may well be indulging the idea of presents or wondering what to do about that troublesome relative who has everything.

To be fair, I am not sure the question was on anyone’s mind, until I introduced it at our last assembly. I introduced the children to the which-came-first of Christmas traditions and went on to share some literary and cinematic masterpieces. We spoke of Dickens’ Christmas Carol and Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. If you haven’t dipped into either reader, you are missing a treat. They exist independently and you would do a lot worse this festive season. I also introduced the children to a piece of world famous music that made its debut in 1742 in Fishamble St Dublin; you may be very surprised to know this was The Messiah, Handel’s oratorio which is as much a part of Christmas as any of the festive adornments mentioned above.

One verse form the oratorio is particularly resonant, it formed the basis of our first reading at the Carol Service last Monday and comes from Isaiah 9.

For unto us a Child is born,
unto us a Son is given,
unto us a Son is given:
and His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor,
The Mighty God,
The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace

The line that catches my attention is the last one, why ‘Prince of Peace’? We wish each other a happy and peaceful Christmas but I wonder what this concept of Peace means and why share it at Christmas? Why not a Peaceful birthday or retirement or wedding anniversary? I suppose Peace might be understood as the absence of conflict. That could work but it is not helpful to explain something with reference to what it is not. That the moon is not a ball of cheese floating in space doesn’t take us closer to the lunar nature. On a side note, there are few more conflicting times than the holiday period as guests and family thrust together, often rub each other up the wrong way, friction leads to a stoney icey silence, a warm front approaching New Year’s Eve, but until then, scattered hail and gusts with severe weather warnings issued for the living room and kitchen. If Peace is not only the absence of conflict, what else is it? I suspect it is in this area that makes Peace the greatest and most elusive of the Christmas gifts. I suspect it is a recognition of our place in the great scheme of things and an acknowledgement that while we are not perfect we are ourselves. It is the acceptance of our intrinsic nature without reference to the distressing influence of comparison and longing to be whatever image of ourselves we think might be popular, influential, or accepted by whatever social norm we allow ourselves to be captured by.

George Bailey and Scrooge were equally incorrect in their assessments of themselves. In regarding one as too insignificant, the other too grandiose or condescending, they find Peace with an acceptance of the things that matter, the intangibles of life, away from ‘the stuff’ of Christmas. The tinseltown, trickledown theatrics dissolve in the realisation that they all pass, but what is eternal, Truth, an authentic life well lived and the loving relationships that give it meaning give us Peace. I hope that you reader, have a Peace filled Christmas and New Year for unto us a child is born.