Preparing for a lowercase “c” christmas
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Over the years, and particularly at this time of the year, as we head towards the Christmas season, I’ve often shared with you my feeling that we need to let go of the idea that it is ever possible to know, in fixed and final terms, the ends toward which we are inevitably moving. The belief that we do know these ends underpins, of course, many of our culturally inherited European and North American ideas about the nature of the Future as well as the nature of Peace and Christmas, and where the words Future, Peace and Christmas are all spelt with an initial capital or uppercase letter. But, today, I want to propose we embrace some alternatives, namely, ideas about lowercase futures, peace, and christmas — all of which I think are achievable and rooted in the reality of the present.
So, in discussing lowercase “f” futures, I’ve often drawn on Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s notion of “futurability,” which invites us to accept that alternative futures are always-already possible. This counters the dogma encapsulated in Margaret Thatcher’s acronym TINA (“There Is No Alternative”), and reminds us of, in Yanis Varoufakis’ words, TATIANA: “That, Astonishingly, There Is AN Alternative.”
Similarly, I’ve suggested letting go of utopian ideas of capital “P” Peace in favour of a lowercase “p” peace, one that is genuinely achievable in the present. Denise Levertov expresses this beautifully in her poem “Making Peace” when she says that peace, like a poem, “is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words [and actions] of its making.” According to this view peaceful futures are, therefore, inscribed in the world as it is, not in some distant ideal, and they are made manifest through our compassionate actions in the here and now.
This brings me to the capital “C” Christmas towards which many people think they are heading during the season of Advent which begins today. The word “Advent” means, remember, that for which we are waiting to come. But the capital “C” Christmas which so many people continue to hope is to come, again in my opinion, is steeped in many problematic theological, cultural, and consumerist narratives which has turned it into something predetermined, a destination towards which we are inevitably moving. But this notion is just another expression of the problematic capital “F” Future, one that always disappoints because it can never fulfil its utopian promises.
So, what is the capital “C” Christmas that so worries me? Well, it’s a multi-layered construct:
Firstly, it’s theological, haunted by the belief in the arrival of a supernatural Messiah who will save the world.
Secondly, it’s sentimental, tied to over-idealised gatherings of family and friends in perfect harmony.
Thirdly, it’s consumerist, driven by the pursuit of the ultimate gift and ultimate satisfuction.
Yet year after year, these ideals fail to materialise. The supernatural Messiah doesn’t come; family gatherings, though meaningful, are often fraught with tension; and the “perfect gift” never provides ultimate satisfaction. Yet, because we have been told TINA, There Is No Alternative to this kind of Christmas, these failures lead us, again and again, to frustration and disappointment. Fortunately, TATIANA reminds us that Astonishingly There Is AN Alternative — in our case, a lowercase “c” christmas.
So, what is a lowercase “c” christmas?
Well, like the peace in Levertov’s poem, a lowercase “c” christmas is not there ahead of itself. As Berardi suggests, it is something which can only emerge from out of the chaotic intricacy of matter, events, and flows and it only comes in so far as we are able patiently to observe this chaos so as to discern a possible order, extracting fragments here and there, and then combining and re-combining them to create something meaningful and new, relevant to our own age.
Advent, a season dedicated to patient waiting, offers us a model of how to do this, but unfortunately, our consumerist culture has largely forgotten how to wait. Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed this in 1943, calling waiting “an art our impatient age has forgotten.” This loss undermines our ability to observe life’s chaotic material — the very substance from which any true lowercase future, peace, and christmas can emerge.
To help us see this we need to learn to re-read the advent story as told in Matthew and Luke. We need to do this because we think we already know how it unfolds, it unfolds towards a predetermined destination: the arrival of Christ as the metaphysical saviour of the world. But if we can learn to read the story whilst inhabiting the characters in the present tense, then we will quickly realise that, like each one of us, John, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, the Magi, and the shepherds don’t know where they or their world is heading. Their world, like ours, was not ahead of itself, and their story, like ours, only emerges from out of their patient observation and response to the chaos and difficulties of their own life and times.
A lowercase “c” christmas, therefore, is not about striving for a predetermined, perfect end, but about creating meaning out of the present chaotic intricacy of matter, events and flows through the gentle and patient disicipline of a silent, and still preparation in the present. One that is not a postponement, but the readying to step forth into new ways of being in the world. As the philosopher Henry Bugbee wrote, “It is in and out of silence, a deep stillness, that the full honesty of the true human spirit is born.” This kind of birth — a lowercase “n” nativity, if you like — is where we are truly born anew and can begin to build, in the present, communities that incarnate a more truly compassionate, peaceful and just life together.
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