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Minutes of Meetings with God |
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A Brilliant Disguise ... |
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| It must be getting close to Christmas. This morning I had two of what
I call my "quirky" (some would say weird) Christmas Carols running repeatedly
through my mind. The songs really aren't Christmas Carols .. they are once
popular songs that almost never come to my mind until about Christmas time.
One of the songs was done ages ago by Janis Joplin ... "Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes-Benz ..." The song is a more than tongue-in-cheek prayer by a person who clearly feels she has fallen far behind her friends (who all have Porsches) in the way of material blessings and wants God to make amends by putting her in the lead with a new Mercedes. Her second request of God is for a new color TV so she can watch "Bowling for Dollars" and qualify for their big dollar give-away. The song is at once a celebration and criticism of the way we in the United States get lost in self-centeredness and in the quest for happiness through getting more things. There must be some deeply cynical piece of me that brings that song to mind around Christmas. I don't remember thinking about that tune until just about the time that the pre-Christmas advertising kicks in. The advertising message repeated over and over again is: "Be happy this Christmas ... buy this or that or the other thing!" and "Make somebody else happy this Christmas buy them this or that or the other thing!" Retailers are even giving hints to people about how much to spend ... the results of pre-Christmas shopping surveys are being announced that show that the "average" shopper plans to spend between $700 and $800 this year ... and the most expensive gift they intend to buy for one person will be between $200 and $400. Now I admit that I will do my part to stimulate the economy this Christmas, but I don't think it will be anywhere near $800 for gifts (unless I can sell Susie on the idea that the remodeling project she wants done is really her only Christmas present this year .. wonder ... no, I don't think so). It is safe to say that we've done a pretty good job of obscuring the meaning of Christmas in our country. Giving things and getting things and having things has next to nothing to do with either Christmas or being happy. If things were the key to happiness, most of us would be ecstatic this Christmas. But many of us are all too familiar with the emotional misery of the Christmas season despite all the "happy stuff" (parties, gifts, etc.) we somehow stay just plain sad. The other song that has come to mind was done comparatively recently by Bruce Springsteen "Brilliant Disguise". This one is a ballad of a person who has a new love ... everything in the relationship seems too perfect ... the singer starts to look at himself and his love ... and the singer is trying to figure out if the new lover is "real" or fake. Over and over again the lover asks: "Is that you, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?" So much of our current unhappiness has to do with our uncertainty, our loneliness, and our distrust of ourselves and of others ... including those that we most desperately want to be the closest to ... the ones that we want to love and to be loved by. The love that we both want and need seems shaky and elusive and undependable ... so we kid ourselves that "things" will fill the empty space in the core of who we are. But things cannot take the place of love. When we discover the depths of our need to love and be loved, we realize that there is no human being who can love us enough to fill that empty space at our core. People are always people ... people make mistakes, people let us down ... people aren't always there when we need them most. The only one who can love us enough is God. Where will we find God? Christmas is really about finding God. It is about being found by God. Christmas is about God coming into our world in person to love us. God's visit is totally unexpected in the sense that it is without ostentation. The angelic and heavenly announcements of the visit were largely misunderstood. The One Who Loves Us doesn't arrive with all the cosmic trappings of all powerful deity; God comes naked ... without anything ... in desperate need of love himself. God enters our world as an infant. God visits us in disguise. Christmas is about our going to a stable. We take all of our uncertainty, our loneliness, our distrust of ourselves and others, all of our need to love and be loved. We see a newborn in its mother's arins. We ask: "Is that you, baby, or just a brilliant disguise?" And we know the answer. Getting back to remodeling as a Christmas present... |