Christmas Dinner 2.0

Friday, December 26, 2008

Christmas Day has come and gone. All went well and all were happy. Today is Christmas 2.0 in Meadville with The Hub's Clan, who have long since become MY clan as well and not just by marriage but by an odd and humorous convergence of the family tree that is difficult to diagram without specialized genealogy software.

Christmas here is fun and laid back. We are awaiting the yearly convergence of the far-flung. I'm currently on my second JD and coke, listening to turkey pop and hiss in the oven. We've just finished a multi-generational discussion on the importance of church/state separation and now The Hub is walking dogs in the rain. Grandpa is watching an illegally downloaded advance copy of Soderberg's Che movie on the Mac. Grandma is haggling me about my newfangled Turkey cookin' skillz. Boys are playing with power tools. All is as it should be, and I am warm and happy.

The Christmas that Wasn't

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

December again and I don't feel very Christmas-y. Maybe that's because this is the year that I think I finally lost my faith, religion, whatever you want to call it. I got all kinds of introspective about it round about the middle of the year. I spent months and months going over it all afresh, everything I've been taught to believe, this whole doctrine of Christianity trying to find some magic bullet Bible verse that makes it all jibe with what is logically, tangibly, provably true and good. Turns out, there's just not much there bolsters a case for faith. Turns out that more than providing answers and truths, the Bible has provoked questions and exposed itself as contradictory. Turns out that actively, critically thinking about faith and religion it has proven to be its very undoing in my mind.

So this is my first Christmas season as an Agnostic and it feels a lot different. Being certain of things for so many years was easy and comforting and required very little of me. Fessing up to Not Knowing is sorta scary. It requires that I read and research and write and in short, do a lot of mental and spiritual leg work. It requires that I think and I'm not used to that.

I'm not the "Tear Down the Manger Scene this X-mas" type, so I will wish a Merry Christmas to all of those who believe and find comfort in the story.