Christmas - The Extreme Season

The story was the same as it is every year. God has sent an angel to earth seeking a sign of Christmas hope and peace. The story always has the same happy ending when a father is reconciled and re-united with his run-away daughter. Yet the journey of getting from the beginning to the end of the Christmas tale is always a most joyous and outlandish ride. This year the story was told in The Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum in Jacksonville, Fla., by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The musicians’ affinity for classical music played in a heavy rock and roll style fills the entire 2 ½ hour performance. But what also pervades the performance during the playing of most of the classical and Christmas carol based music are strobe lights, lasers, flame throwing fire-pots, smoke machines, stage rigging that moves out over the audience, and, oh yes, a fifteen piece orchestra backing up the three guitarists, the two keyboard players, the one electronic violinist, and the sole drummer who has lasers flying out of his drums. The Christmas message is invoked in a sensory overloaded experience. One 84-year-old woman who was in the final stages of her battle with cancer who accompanied me to a performance two years ago stood clapping and dancing as the final selection – Beethoven’s Fifth - was being played. Then she said to me, “What joy I felt! That was really something! I feel like a child again!” That’s part of what Christmas is all about – innocence and freedom of spirit and child-like joy and wonder. There is a part of the heart of Christmas that should be outlandishly joyous. “Joy to the world the Lord has come!”
I move ahead twelve hours to a street in the old section of St. Augustine, Fla. As we walked down the narrow streets of the “oldest city in America” I noticed an unassuming sign hanging from the entrance to a small courtyard. It was the entrance to St. Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine. They called the shrine – where the first colony of Greeks arrived in America – their “Plymouth Rock.” We cautiously approached the narrow doorway. After being greeted warmly by two members of the shrine’s staff, we walked into the history filled and icon laden shrine. The altar evoked a meditative spirit and calming silence to our souls. The awe and wonder of the shepherds and magi enfolded us. Speechless, silence, iconic beauty – the Virgin and Child looked into our souls from their elevated place behind the altar. “How silently the wondrous gift is given!”
Child-like joy and innocence that believes that reconciliation among all peoples is possible; that lions and lambs can lie together – awe-filled silence that is birthed because of the mystery and majesty of this Holy Birth. “Let heaven and nature sing” – “Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices!” This is why I call Christmas the extreme season. It is no season for mediocrity when it comes to the state of our souls. May Christmas be the catalyst for our living an extremely Christ-filled life regardless of the date on the calendar.
Bob

P.S. Since I finished this article Congress voted a weak budget deal and extension of the payroll tax cuts. Our elected officials have become such boring, joyless, boxed up people. They have become the supreme example of “Bah! Humbug People!” Maybe they need to go to a TSO concert and to the shrine of St. Photios.