Back in the eighties, a group called Band Aid got together and created a series of songs for which the proceeds of attendance and recordings went to charity in the developing world. Back then, it was a very powerful song. Whenever I think of it, I remember helping to organize a conference for my profession one year and hearing this song play as a backdrop in the hotel lobby, as we met with their conference convener who showed us rooms and various meal plans for our people. I remember hearing there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime, the greatest gift they'll get this year is life, oh Where nothing ever grows, no rain nor rivers flow ... Do they know it's Christmastime at all? This song always got me thinking about how our cultural dominance tends to define things like Christmas, whereby not everybody in the world celebrates this holiday.
The other song that reminds me of the deepest memories I've had of this time of year's the Little Drummer Boy, although for believers that see this song as a moral tale of a young boy attending the birth of Baby Jesus who played his drum for him and how at the end Jesus smiled at him. This song even to me as an Agnostic does have meaning. It is non-judgmental. It is gratitude. This is so unlike the crass commercialism of Christmas. If I am to celebrate Christmas at all, I will vigorously celebrate Boxing Day instead and hit the malls on that day and get the bargains of the year. A similar song set it out in detail, as performed by Steve Earle. As a young person, I would love to listen to these songs as I yearned for the first snowfall of the year. We would make paper snowflakes and spray on "snow" on our windows, as the music played for the season.
As I got older though, my impression of the holidays became cynical, so ridden with cynicism mixed with yearning and emptiness of today, how Christmas used to be the season of promises and joy, but today, reality is filled to the brim with global warming, war and rumours of wars ... as more people gather at the corners of our downtown streets protesting what they see as the vile reality of abortion. As the streets gather up with gold and glitter, music playing as we walk and wander around ... passing the market square where movies were once held for Halloween, now for Christmas (A Charlie Brown Christmas). This year, it is happening around me without my participation and indulgence, while realizing I still need to give to my closest friends and colleagues something as they celebrate, even if I no longer partake in it.
I think the problem I really have with the holidays is the prosperity that it gives to poverty industry, whereas food banks and related charities run full tilt at soliciting donations, creating commercials to portray people in poverty and only proposing such be settled by people donating more to these particular charities, many of which are run by highly paid staff. Of course, the holidays mean much more to these folks, who go home to very traditional, family-oriented Christmas and accolades at the time of the season for beating last year's fundraising efforts. In the meanwhile, the people their "charity" helps sit in their broken down rooming houses, often alone with nowhere to go on Christmas Day. Maybe these organizations will sponsor a meal, a get together for those alone on that day, but regardless of the blessing shed by so many, these people will live the balance of the next year in shame, degradation and fear, brought about by governments run by the same types of people, who pat one another on the back for their good work. At the same time, a choir plays in my mind, "I don't believe in painted roses, or bleeding hearts as the bullets rape the night of the merciful ..."
People who believe in human rights and understand the struggle of many people, not only in our own country, but around the world, can understand that our own traditions and ideals actually mean so little on the face of everything else. The artists and critics among us are those that raise the world in its awareness in all of its vastness, cultural relevance and the knowledge that we all have but one thing in common. At one time the sun will set in all of our eyes, as we together run through the river of life, to the deep sea. The ocean awaits all of us, once the river stops its flow and the ocean is integral to our learning of what our lives all entail. Life is what happens between the bookends of birth and death, while we all create our own imaginings of what is valued and in our society, who is valued more than other people. At this time of the year, it is not the poor and unfortunate who are valued, but those that raise the funds and hold themselves on the big pedestal of society, as if to say, "Hey world, look what we are doing?"
Doing good is quiet and relentless. Doing good is outside of the work of charity, especially if we are to honour our impoverished folks,and give them something that will last them throughout the year, their dignity. Conservatives tell us 'the poor will always be with us'. However, do we have to accept that premise on its face? Dignity is much more than giving people a hand out once a year, inviting them to a 'charity' dinner and being featured in some damned commercial about "the poor", which is some amorphous, misunderstood group of people that hopelessly and persistently remain "with us". This gives us the impression that we can only act individually and that policy doesn't mean a damned thing. To me, policy involves choices: a choice to do or not to do, a choice of a range of economic interventions or lack thereof, and priorities. Sadly, the priorities of both senior levels of government are to filter more tax dollars to the wealthiest people in the country in some dim glimmer of hope that they will turn this economy around. Why would these people care any more about the economy than the rest of us, when the decisions weighting on the same are not held by them, nor are they held accountable for what they do with their advantage?
Saddened as many are this year by the imposition of this provincial government, once again taking from the vulnerable to satisfy the cravings of the rich, Christmas means even less. For those of you who will be alone that day, my heart lies within you and my soul bears your name.
