THE MYSTERY SYSTEM OF CHRISTMAS A tale of the human ethos

OF course, it’s a commercial period that from my perspective, husbands should keep the attention of their wives at home rather than walking downtown. I think from experience that there are many spirits embodied in what is defined as the spirit of Christmas, like the muses they have different categories of inspiration one is ‘Shopping beyond the boundaries of necessity’ and that inspiration targets women. Most men have a list that includes the stress-related bills, the last record I read, mentioned that men die more from stress-related illnesses than women; that’s because we’re born with this list of not-to-dos that define ‘manhood’: don’t whine, complain, beg, cry, and realise that there are no ‘Sugar Mamas’ only ‘Sugar Daddies’ don’t become one, or the stress will destroy you. This is a phenomenon of Christmas not only in Guyana, but from larger economies that I’ve lived in for a while, where the enthusiasm of the season compels an intoxication of shopping. They, however, have a consumer privilege to take back items, rebalancing the budget into reality, that provides a favourable sober-up reprieve. From the beginning of time, human governance has instilled in populations the longing for redemption; thus, more so the longing for divine intervention. Somehow this has accounted for the remarkable presence of shepherd Elders across cultures. I inherited a book published in 1913 on comparative religions by Rev. Charles H. Vail titled ‘The World Saviors.’ It took me some years to explore its narratives and in-depth content on the similarity of unusual revolutionary souls that have emerged across all human variations, Prophets, Messiahs, Avatars etc. It occurred to me that cynical as I am, that it is doubtful that there was a global exchange of this idea, since people hardly travelled over 100 miles to go anywhere, except by sea routes, here and there, for example, the entire Biblical geography is located on the African continent. The remarkable thing is that in this very book and others after, there was a common denominator, of common birth timing, based on a specific astronomical uniformity for all these saviours. However, the essence of the birth of Jesus who would become the ‘Christ’ is rooted in our human culture of the sacred, that echoes the relevance of religion and the constant quest of change when the illumination dims, and the business of man-contrived gods usurp the higher responsibility expounded at the birth of the manifestation. Christmas also envelopes the old harvest festival custom through the cleansing and preparing of the home, whether owned or rented, acknowledging that a house is not a home, a home is an environment within the walls, of souls with shared empathy and compassion. In another age, we cleansed and treated tribal farmlands and waterways, shared food and gifts for those less productive, with Christmas we are still cued to the profound symbolism that has sustained us through the ages.

The Christ season summons the otherwise deeper contained aspects of our nature: we think of gifts to persons who have affected us positively, to our families– meaning spouse and offspring — and others; despite social media, we are still inspired by beautiful and relevant funny cards. We must also think of those out of employment, for those relatives and friends, we apply an old family custom; we do that sub-ration ‘thing.’ And for many of us, we also buy a gift for ourselves. Covid-19 has imposed the need for adjustment, books, time to recapture the fun of reading stories with drama. The competition of games, board or cards, hours of holiday fun and staying healthy through these reactivated customs, are important. We also take time out to greet folk near and far with greetings of goodwill. Christmas is also said to be the time of suicides in the big cities where the old holistic tribal support system has long been abandoned, loneliness and immediate hopelessness are terrible creatures to wrestle with. At home crime increases, mostly young men ‘especially in the city where the living is hardest’ risk and throw away their lives over pittances, which brings us to the point that the administrators do not quite understand the pulses awakened by this season or that we are not sensitive enough to even recognise a pattern, though it has been repeated by our law enforcement for over four decades now. Christmas is when street crimes increase.
We have got to pull it together as best we could, for those with their backs to the wall, even the perceived insignificant amount can help. We live in the most costly age since independence, the ‘accustomcy’ to the presence of modernisation has induced us to live beyond our means in many cases, and there are other problems, such as the inevitable dependency on the tech world, so we must with sobriety balance the ideals and spirit of Christmas and stay grounded to what is significant first, that is, to the closest humanity that we call ‘the Home.’

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