Merry Christmas, friends. I’m sitting here in my La-Z-Boy couch with a mug of rather potent eggnog that Lisa has made. The rum in the eggnog is speaking to me in a manner that disinclines me to write a lengthy post. Yet it is Christmas Eve, and I must say something.
I am tired of the political correctness in this country that insists on squelching what Christmas is and has always been about: a celebration of the birth of Jesus. I have no issue with recognizing and respecting people’s right to practice non-Christian traditions, though I do not subscribe to them. But our thin-skinned culture of today attempts to patronize all faiths simultaneously with a naive and stifling syncretism that respects none of them for what they really are.
This is Christmas. And in honor of what Christmas is about, I thought I’d share with you a poem by the wonderful British author Adrian Plass. I find it honest, eloquent, moving, and beautiful, and I hope you will too.
Christmas in Heaven
By Adrian Plass
When I’m in heaven
Tell me there’ll be kites to fly,
The kind they say you can control,
Although I never did for long.
The kind that spin and spin and spin and spin,
Then sulk and dive and die,
And rise again and spin again,
And dive and die and rise up yet again.
I love those kites.
When I’m in heaven
Tell me there’ll be friends to meet
In ancient oak-beamed Sussex pubs
Enfolded by the wanton Downs,
And summer evenings lapping lazily against the shore
Of sweet, familiar little lands
Inhabited by silence or by nonsenses,
The things you cannot safely say in any other place.
I love those times.
When I’m in heaven
Tell me there’ll be seasons when the colors fly,
Poppies splashing flame
Through dying yellow, living green,
And autumn’s burning sadness that has always made me cry
For things that have to end.
For winter fires that blaze like captive suns,
But look so cold when morning comes.
I love the way the seasons change.
When I’m in heaven
Tell me there’ll be peace at last,
That in some meadow filled with sunshine,
Filled with buttercups and filled with friends,
You’ll chew a straw and fill us in on how things really are.
And if there is some harm at laying earthly hope at heaven’s door,
Or in this saying so,
Have mercy on my foolishness, dear Lord.
I love this world you made—it’s all I know.
When I’m in heaven
Tell me there’ll be Christmases without the pain,
No memories that will not fade,
No chilled and sullen sense of loss
That cannot face the festive flame
Nor breathe excitement from the ice-cream air.
Tell me how the things that Christmas should have been
Will be there for eternity in one long, shining dawn
For all of us to share.
I love the promises of Christmas.