The American educator, Allan Bloom,..... tells how, as a young man taking his first university classes, a professor introduced his course in this way. Looking at his young, 19-20 year-old students, the professor said: "You come here from your small-town, parochial backgrounds and I am going to bathe you in great truth - and set you free." Bloom, even at 19, wasn't impressed. He writes that this professor reminded him of a little boy who had solemnly informed him when he was seven years old that there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. But, Bloom adds, "he wasn't bathing me in any great truth, he was showing off."
Bloom comments that what he learned from that professor was to forever teach in the opposite way. He, Bloom, would start his classes with words to this effect: "You come here having experienced so many things. You've seen so much of life that I'm going to try to teach you how to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny again - and then maybe you will have a chance again to be happy!"
This, properly nuanced, captures one of the invitations inside of Christmas. The Christmas crib invites us back to our innocence, though not to the pre-sophisticated naivete of a child, but to the post-sophisticated and post-cynical joy and innocence of a truly mature adult, to a second-naivete, a post-liberal, post-bitter, post-wounded, and post-hard-hearted place.
One of my professors in Louvain used to flag this little slogan: If you ask a naive child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will say yes. If you ask a bright child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will say no. But if you ask even a brighter child if she believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny, she will smile slyly and then say yes.
Christmas is about much deeper things than Santa and the birth of Jesus is not just some delightful fairy tale meant to warm the heart. We measure time by this event. Christmas is about God being born physically and historically into this world and, among many other things, we have some stunning lessons to learn from the manner in which this happened.
As virtually all of our iconography around Christmas makes clear, God is born, not as some superstar whose earthly power, beauty, and muscle dwarf us. No. God is born as helpless, vulnerable, thoroughly under-whelming baby who looks out at us quietly even as we look back at him and he judges us in that way that vulnerability forever judges false strength, transparency judges lies, generosity judges selfishness, innocence judges over-sophistication, and a baby, gently and helplessly and disarmingly, calls forth what's best in us.
Christmas is meant to bring us back to the crib so that our hearts can feel that freshness that wants to make us start living over again.
end quote
Marcus Borg also writes about that "second naivete. "
Does Christmas invite me into this "naive" view that peace is God's will, and that we are all children of God, despite the headlines of the news? Can I be naive enough to believe that community with diversity is worth the effort? Can I naively believe that human hearts can move beyond the self centered ego? Can I believe that the Christ way really is the way to live? Maybe I will spend some of the day with things like prayer, and taking some communion elements to an elderly couple, and seeing a women in the care center, who has had a stroke, and won't know who I am anyway. I will try to be naive enough to think it is worth doing and that it too, could be the love of God.
Yesterday the Daily Spiritual Seed had this quote:
"Every light that comes from Holy Scripture comes from the lightNaively rambling?
of grace. This is why foolish, proud and learned people are blind
even in the light, because the light is clouded by their own pride
and selfish love. They read the Scripture literally, not with
understanding. They have let go of the light by which to Scripture
was formed and proclaimed. "
- Catherine of Sienna -
Does being faithfully naive mean reading scripture in that other
light of understanding
that Catherine suggests?
Rory
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