The Carol of Our Belonging
Letters from Father Christmas
Seems time to say a few things about this and that.
I love all the thoughtful notes. Thank you. Please, though, I hope you might let a few questions go. Please as well, when another dreadful Santa story comes on, turn off the Telly. Maybe leave it off but for the rarest delights.
“So which Santa am I?” you ask. The real one? “And which nickname is the true one?” “What part of the world do I come from?”
Do you, my dear children, believe in me?
I am at home in each of your regions. And I am home in the deepest north.
Please don’t bother with all those stories explaining what is mysterious about me. The mystery is lovelier than the explanations could ever be. Those who seek simple answers, as most do these days, would insist that no man could be in all places on a single night. Perhaps they would be right about such a solitary old soul, but I’m also quite sure I may come home to each of you, by your invitation, just as we wish. How could these both be true?
If your imaginative appetite and faithful wondrous curiosities flourish even though you have found no simple explanations then you know, in some quiet way, that I am.
On the other hand, if your logic leads you to some apparent fact that no person could circumnavigate the globe on a particular calendar night, stop for a personal visit in each child’s home, all while traveling through illogical means from the verifiably most desolate, inhospitable, unforgiving region on the planet, -and you are then expected to disregard your quite reliable sensibilities- then there could be no rational conclusion to be drawn but to trust your judgment, that I cannot be.
Yet for the open-hearted of you who trust that there is much we can never understand, and you continue to Love, I visit you and your children and I quicken your faithful spirit each Christmas. Ask me how I must either be none or many and I say just that I am.
But also that I am called to you in song - a voice - in harmonic resonance - a Carol of our Belonging. I am at home with you if you feel even slightly intrigued (that does not require blind disregard of well warranted and battle weary suspicions) but if you feel at least marginally intrigued by the currency of the ideas about the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Son of Man -if you find wonder in the Christ as that mysterious Holy Breath we draw in and let out marking every single NOW, then He is. I am. We are. I visit you in His Holy Name every Christmas Eve with the blessed marrow-born memory of the very first breath.
Oh, and my dear sweet children, let me be quite clear on this next point. I am very very old. My names and my history serve the Christ by aspiring to the image of the Most High - Gloria in Excelsis Deo - exalting the man of Jesus at his birth.
He said in later years, “Before Abraham was, I am.” You see he knows the divinity in Abraham, of Krishna, Allah, Siddhartha, Ishwara, Fatima, Mary, Sophia… it is not such a short list. Brahman, or the Tao, Source, Unified field of Consciousness, God - call it what you will - this is eternal and many beautiful souls have felt - have sensed - have known The Ineffable Divine in ways the rest of us have yet to discover. To honestly know this is a heart-knowledge, and one’s particular context is no obstacle. Quite the contrary, arrogance does most adequately suffice in the tragic denial of Love.
Some of my dearest sisters and brothers have paid a most heavy price for a commitment to The Power that transcends nations and persons. They strived to live as Jesus did - as Christ lives - empty but for Outpouring Love - He loves us, is Love, and will absolutely continue on Loving as Love - not a grain of sand to slow the current. These are all narrow words for pieces of a wide eternal pulsating “now” within which we are unbearably privileged to bear the tension of divinity in our mortal moment.
I simply return tonight to remind you.
None of us can sleepwalk through this holy night if we wish to truly wake each day. One day, as the promise inspires, we may all come to know what has always been true. We are one conscience, one body - and we truly wake each day knowing that We Are as I Am. This is the promise. And to be sure, even I, Nick, am still a trifle clumsy with all of this, just like you. (I know, it’s “Saint” Nick, but you can’t even get started without humility. We all sleep in the same earthen cloth.) This, my beautiful children, is the what - the who - the how I serve. This is the Carol of our Belonging. Emmanuel God With Us.
Finally, hang in there, my children. Just do your best. Yours is the heart of this journey. Your reverence - your commitments - your honor - your grace - HIS GRACE. These are yours to carry, and to so choose is to then be carried-- to be carried as in this dreamlike sleigh-ride, clear of heart, if not of mind, and most truly human. Be not discouraged.
Merry Christmas all my dearest Loves (that would be you, whoever so hears me) and God bless us, Everyone!
GP X (Grand Père Christmas)
...And whatever names, through so many generations, we have forgotten.
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