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A Christmas myth

I love the Christmas Story, the lights, the glitter, the love. I love that the day coincides with the first glimmer of the rising sun. I love the madness that reminds us how tenuous our grip is.

This year’s Melchior (VNY)

Here’s a photo from the 2022 Vatican nativity scene. It’s a lovely crèche, and as tradition mandates, the Magi are there, bearing their gifts.

Only problem, the wise men didn’t show up until a year or two after the birth, at least according to the Holy Bible.

But here’s the rub–just asking a practicing Christian when the Wise Men finally got to Bethlehem often brings an incredulous stare with a hint of hostility.

I’m not looking for a fight on Christmas Day. I was raised Irish Catholic, grew up with various crèches as much a part of today as our tree and our Santa, and put faith in The Gospels (while recognizing humans told these stories long after the Crucifixion).

If the Vatican sanctions the bastardized story that the Magi were present the night of Jesus’ birth, a story the Holy See must know to be corrupt, what hope does a science teacher have of sharing stories that do not fit a child’s preconceptions of the universe?

None, actually, but my goals are far less grandiose. I just want a child to learn to see, and to question inconsistencies in our stories based on the natural world.

If a child happens to question the inconsistencies in other parts of her life–sustainable economic “growth,” Peacekeeper missiles, and a nuclear submarine named the USS Corpus Christi (“the body of Christ”)–she has a chance to change a human world that needs a bit of changing, a world that is worth saving.

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The whitewashing of Dr. King

When I die, I hope nobody mistakes my kindness for niceness. I am not a nice man.
Dr. King’s life profoundly affected mine.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice….Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Martin Luther King, Jr., from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail“

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was loving, and kind, and powerful. His words still resonate, should you choose to hear them.

Do not confuse non-violence with passivity.

Do not confuse kindness with niceness.

During school announcements yesterday, our students were told that Dr. King pushed “cooperation.” Rania Jones, a 3rd grade winner of the Milwaukee Public Schools’ “People Must Work Together” King contest wrote “That’s what we must do today – demonstrate cooperation.” This is the Dr. King lite version of a complex story. This is the version that gives so many of us the day off on Monday.

“Love” is a complex word, and one not easily used in public settings. “Cooperation” is much safer, more sanitary.

And it’s the wrong message.

***

My Dad joined  the 1963 March on Washington, dressed in full uniform, a proud US Marine officer. He flew A4 Phantom Skyhawks off carriers, in love with a country that let poor first generation children fly.

My dad was pulled to the front of the parade, or so the story goes. If you see a full-dressed USMC officer in photos from the parade, it may well be Bill Doyle. Dr. King later went on to oppose the Viet Nam War as unjust, and my father, a die-hard leatherneck, resigned his commission for the same reason.

I grew up in an Irish Catholic home, but Dr. King held as much influence as the Pope, maybe more, years before he was assassinated. My Dad loved the man, not the cartoon he has become.

Read “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.”

Take a walk outside and watch the grace and agony of life around us.

Yes, it’s complicated. Life is complex,

You want to learn about Dr. King? Go read his words, listen to his speeches, learn everything you can about him. But don’t “cooperate” with those who would steal his image without his words, the Mike Pences, the innumerable talking heads that will piously bow today.

Take a walk, a walk outside, away from noise. Carry a copy of King’s letter and read it under the January sunlight.

Share it. Live it.

Don’t let the dream die.

The photo of Dr. King (D.C., August, 1963)  is from the National Archives and is the public domain.

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The connected child

An essential quality of technology, from the spear to Skype, is action at a distance. Technology enables us to have an effect on people and things far away. In general, the more advanced the technology, the further away it is able to impose an effect. 



Our lives cost the lives of others. That’s always been true, and will be so long as we breathe. Technology allows us to forget this.

As technophiles spew on about a global community, where your value is measured by the number of hits your words register, their hands never touch the blood and feces of the life around them.

You want every child “connected”? So do I. It’s what’s at the other end of the connection that matters.

All children, every child, should know where the stuff that makes up their bodies comes from, all the way back to the living organisms that fill up, unrecognizable, wrapped in plastic.


All children, every child, should know where their waste goes, through hidden pipes and trucks that rumble before dawn through the neighborhood once or twice a week.

We can do both, I suppose–just make sure you cover up the machines when I bring in a calf (or whatever the cafeteria is serving this week) to slaughter in the classroom.


I could live without my computer a lot easier than living without my knife.