Handel's Messiah to an #AtheistEar

Merry Christmas!

Yeah, I know, an atheist isn't supposed to say that. (Whose rule is that, again?) But my choral group performed the chorus "For Unto Us a Child Is Born" from Handel's Messiah this year, and since my regular post this week fell on Christmas, I thought I'd talk about that piece. As an artist, there isn't a more eloquent way to express what it means to me than to play it:





Hands down, this is one of my favorite pieces of music, and always has been. And here, it is performed here by one of the premier groups in the world. But, of course, I'm a non-believer (thus the idea behind the #AtheistEar series) and I approach a piece like this differently than a believer would.

Lyrics are available here...but they're basically Isaiah 9:6:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The tradition I was raised in taught that this verse is a prophecy from the prophet Isaiah, who lived about 800 years before the time of Jesus. Handel includes it in his Christmas oratorio because many Christian traditions hold that this prophecy referred to the birth of Jesus, and while that is certainly not how the Jewish people read that passage, it was considered to be a major argument legitimizing Christianity as a sect of Judaism in its earliest days.

Not being a person who believes in the existence of the supernatural, of course I don't accept the Divinity of this story as Gospel (get it?), but the evidence seems to indicate^* that there was actually a human being at the center of the Christmas story. Who he was, when he was born, and what his name was are up for debate; who wrote the stories and sermons attributed to him may be an open question; but at the very least, it's safe to say that a small group with a dynamic leader did teach some pretty radical ideas in that corner of the Roman Empire about 2,000 years ago.

I've written recently about the darker, more gruesome side of the Gospel story (see "There Is Power In the Blood"), but for the sake of the Handel piece, I'm only going to focus on the uplifting side today.  From a secular humanist point of view, the core teachings attributed to Jesus Christ are pretty important ideas.

After all, he is supposed to have said "Love your neighbor as yourself," which is the essence of the Golden Rule. And his answer to the follow-up question, "But who is my neighbor?" is an undeniably important foundation of a peaceful society. (You might Imagine a more modern artist singing songs about that ideal, too!)

While Christians certainly don't own the original copyright on the idea of universal brotherhood, their influence on Western civilization had a lot to do with the way they championed the idea of using love and forgiveness as the central driving force of human life instead of power and wealth.

It is my opinion that Christians are at their best when they remember the ideals that they share with humanists and progressive or liberal elements of other faiths, and fight to protect the weak against the wealthy and powerful - as Jesus commanded them to do. Of course, I'd be happier if they did that because it is the rational and moral thing to do without the weight of a commandment from a divine character in their mythology... but these days, I think the side of decency needs all the allies it can get, regardless of why they're on that side.
 Remember, from where I sit, the entire Christmas story is pure mythology. Aside from the existence of Jesus, there is no reason to believe that any of the accounts given in the Bible are accurate or factual. I know the fact that I see it that way is offensive to some, and I don't say it to be mean-spirited. But I mention it because being fiction doesn't take away from the relevant parts of the story. Dickens only wrote fiction, so there was no actual Ebenezer Scrooge - yet the transformation of Scrooge is still something that I find inspiring. Dr. Who is wildly fictional, but I still take a great deal of joy in the humanist ideals expressed through those stories.

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Keep that in mind when I tell you that I enjoy singing a piece like this chorus from Handel's Messiah. I may not believe the same literal story you do, but I believe in the same goal. And I recognize that your intention when you celebrate is to glorify the person who you see as the source of the moral fabric that binds us together, whether I see him that way or not.

For all the pain and terror that can be pinned on Christianity in the course of Western history, Christmas is a festival that tries to focus on that message of love and hope. When Christians stay true to that message, they are at their best, and in our divided, diverse, and often combative world, it's important for all of us to be reminded of that.



^* I recommend starting with Bart Ehrman's 2012 book "Did Jesus Exist?" for as neutral an assessment of the historical evidence as you are likely to find.

Faith of Our Fathers to an #AtheistEar

Here's a little holiday gem from crooner Bing Crosby, off his hit White Christmas collection, Merry Christmas. See if you can guess what I want to say about it while you listen!





(Lyrics are available here.)

Call me old fashioned, but if a number one hit holiday album can't reference death (4 times) and imprisonment (twice), then it just doesn't feel festive.

But seriously, this was a hymn we would occasionally pull out - usually around Father's Day - and plod through lugubriously in order to honor the fathers in the congregation. I was actually surprised to find it on a Christmas album, because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the birth of Christ. Then again, this was recorded in an era when doctors said smoking was good for you, so there's that.

The lesson I took away from this song when I was a kid was probably not the lesson intended by the "fathers" of the church. (Which faith? Depends on which fathers...) As we gloomily intoned verses about our fathers chained in prisons dark, we were living in the salad days of Reagan's "shining city on a hill," waking up from the Baby Boom years. For all of the references to "dungeon, fire, and sword," it occurred to me that this song didn't really apply to my family:

Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free
How sweet would be their children's fate
If they, like them, could die for thee

Millenials probably recognize that notion - "you kids don't know how good ya got it, do ya?" But since my father hadn't suffered any of the things in the song, the message clearly wasn't directed at me. If anything, these words seemed to be directed at my father - "look at the sacrifices of those who came before," it sang. Not that I don't appreciate my father, but the most gruesome ordeal he had to put up with was me. That hardly fits the sentiment of the song.

I could almost see my grandfather, who had served in World War II, shaking his head at the relatively painless brush with Army life my dad had endured and putting that generational guilt trip on him. Of course, I've since learned that both of my grandfathers had relatively safe tours in their war, compared to what their Civil War grandfathers endured - so maybe this song was meant to put the guilt trip on them by their fathers... and so on, back to a time when Christians actually were persecuted for their faith. (Which raises the uncomfortable point that the worst persecutors of Christians on this continent were other Christians.)

Even at that age, though, this idea started to smell at bit off. For one thing, even though the American Revolution was painted as a war fought for freedom - particularly freedom from the state religion of England - that wasn't really the point of that war. If anything, you could make more of a case that the Revolution set the stage for our secular Constitution, which is something we quarrel about to this day.

The one takeaway from this song that I really could get behind, then as now, was this verse:

Faith of our fathers, we will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife;
And preach Thee, too, as love knows how
By kindly words and virtuous life.

This idea gets a bit broken up by the rhyme scheme, but I read it as a statement of what the "faith of our fathers" is supposed to be, and I actually quite like it. If I may take the liberty of restating that verse:

"We will love both friend and foe as we all struggle along, and demonstrate our values 'as love knows how' - through being kind and true to our principles."

Call me a sucker for festive holiday tunes, but that speaks to this secular humanist. I won't be pulling this one out to sing around the tree, but at least with that interpretation, I can live with it.

But you can keep the guilt trips and the torture for another holiday.

Christmas Tracks (aka TrAXE)

Greetings and Happy Holidays to All!

Brent had an idea a few months back. He suggested that we do a Christmas album. He and I and his guitar teacher from Texas, Chase, all thought it was a good idea. We put together some tracks, brainstormed for some silly/cool names, and came up with this:

The Band is "Smells Okay to Me"
The Album is "Christmas TrAXE: A Bag Full of Carols"

And it is up on Last.fm for anyone who wants to take a listen. We arranged them all ourselves, and all but one of them are "Public Domain", so you can download those. (It's all free!)

We hope you like it, and if you do, we'll be putting it out as a CD that you can order (details will follow, in plenty of time for NEXT Christmas).

Merry Christmas!

Chilly: The Elf Who Could Not Love

Everyone who knows about Christmas knows that Santa Claus runs a workshop at the North Pole, where all of the toys for all of the good little boys and girls in the world are made by cheerful elves. But not all of the elves are cheerful. There is one elf, named Chilly, who doesn't know how to love.

Chilly used to try to make toys like the other elves, but they never turned out quite right. When the other elves made dolls, they made pretty dolls with curly, bouncy hair of chestnut, ebony, or spun gold; with rosy, apple-round cheeks; with bright white, straight teeth; and with shining eyes of blue, brown or deep sea green. When Chilly made dolls, they had straight, spiky hair; pale, grey cheeks; muddy eyes; and a mouth that was a thin, crooked line.

When the other elves made toy horses, they had flowing manes and tails, mighty flanks, and saddles and bridles woven with gold and silver. Their race cars had bright paint and cool graphics. Their soldiers had sharp uniforms and impressive tanks and jeeps. Their trumpets and xylophones knew all the best songs, their Play-dough never dried out, and their yo-yo's always came back.

When Chilly made toy horses, they had knobby knees and yellow teeth, and their bridles were twists of twine. His race cars had smeary paint and crooked decals. His soldiers were missing boots, and their tanks and jeeps had bent cannons and dented radiators. His saxophones honked tunelessly, his Play-dough was a solid, brown blob of rock, and his yo-yo's always fell off their strings.

Santa shook his head sadly when he saw Chilly's toys, and said, "I can't give those toys to the good little boys and girls! Maybe we can find something else that Chilly can make." Chilly just shrugged.

The other elves tried to come up with a toy that Chilly could make, but his basketballs all came out flat, and his roller skates never had the right number of wheels. One elf even had the brilliant idea to have Chilly make all of the monster toys for kids that liked scary things, but Chilly's monsters didn't turn out right either: they either didn't have enough teeth, or he put flowers on them instead of tentacles. Poor Chilly just couldn't LOVE enough to make the kinds of toys that Santa could use.

But Santa Claus had other problems to worry about.

Every year, there were more and more children in the world. Santa had lots of helpers, but he was the only one who could deliver the toys on Christmas Eve, and he was starting to have trouble keeping up. He and his eight tiny reindeer flew from sunset in Japan until sunrise in Hawaii, and still just barely had time to visit every single house with children in it!

Finally, one year, Santa had an idea that he thought would save him some time. As you know, Santa takes presents to all of the good boys and girls, but he also takes a lump of coal for all of the naughty boys and girls in the world.

"If I stop taking all of that coal to all of the naughty children, I will have more time to visit the good children!" said Santa Claus. So, that's just what he did.

One year, instead of waking up on Christmas morning to find a lump of coal in their stockings (or under their pillow, if they were really naughty), all of the naughty children found nothing at all. And when they didn't get anything at all, they thought that Santa didn't care about them, so instead of trying to be good the next year, they started behaving even more badly than they had the year before. Some of them were so naughty that they turned the good boys and girls into naughty children, too!

When Santa saw what was happening, he grew very sad. "I will have to start delivering coal again, or I'll run out of good children altogether!" he said. "But how will I ever find the time to lug all of that awful coal AND my wonderful presents around the whole world in one night? I need one of my helpers to come along and deliver it for me." But all of Santa's helpers were too cheerful and kind to ever do something as mean as dropping coal into children's' stockings! How could he ask them to do such a stern thing, when they all had so much love?

Just then, an elf went by with a box full of toys that Chilly had made – a jack-in-the-box without a handle, a pair of bunny slippers with no ears, and a little red wagon with the wheels on the inside – bound for the trash pile. Santa had an idea. He sent for Chilly, and told him to meet him at the reindeer barn. When Chilly got there, Santa greeted him with a "Ho, ho, ho!" and told him, "I've found the perfect job for you, Chilly!"

That Christmas Eve, when Santa Claus got into his magic sleigh with all of the wonderful toys that the elves had made, Chilly climbed into a sleigh, too. Chilly's sleigh had a huge burlap sack filled with coal. And his reindeer was a grumpy old mule deer with one antler. And his sleigh had a bent runner that made it pull to the right. And Chilly went around the whole world with Santa that night, from sunset in Japan to sunrise in Hawaii, delivering coal to all the naughty boys and girls in the world.

Santa was thrilled to have a helper. Chilly was as happy as an elf who cannot love can be. Most important, the naughty children knew that Santa still thought about them, and they started trying to behave properly again.

So, if you get some nice presents this year, you can thank Santa, and pat yourself on the back for being so good all year long. But if you get a lump of coal, you should start doing your homework and picking up your room; and thank Chilly, the elf who could not love for reminding you!