PLEASE NOTE: For your protection and owing to the new religiously-correct guidelines, potentially offensive words will be bleeped from this piece.
Well the XXX's are upon us, and as we greet friends and fellow shoppers we're getting a little taste of our own medicine. Well I should qualify that word "our" – the medicine of which I speak is the castor oil of caution administered by the Bush administration and its many religious advisors.
As Ari Fleischer told us back in 2001, "Americans need to watch what they say." And careful we are. In fact, we're getting carefuller every day.
Considering all the hoopla about XXX greetings, whether for the Christian XXX season or the Jewish XXX season or the African-American XXX season, or the agnostic XXX season, I wouldn't be surprised if by next XXX we stop greeting one another altogether, communicating with smiley or frowney faces instead.
Of course that leaves the problem of the written word, which is pestering me at the moment because I can't seem to sign my emails properly. If I write, "Merry XXX," I might offend someone who's not Christian. If I want to be respectful of the possibility that my correspondent may not be Christian, I can type, "Happy XXX," but that would inspire the wrath of Jerry Falwell and his fearsome Moral Majority.
All morning I've been typing greetings and then deleting them, or settling for the banal and unmerry "Best Regards."
And as for my XXX cards? I'm sure to land in hot water no matter what I do, so my solution at this point is to leave them sitting in their box. It's a shame, because they're awfully cute with blue glitter designs, but…well we need to be careful what we say.
Maybe I'm overreacting. After all, we're not that far gone yet…
"Bill O’Reilly warned viewers that store clerks no longer saying ‘Merry Christmas’ foretold the imminence of ‘a brave new progressive world’ where gay marriage, partial birth abortion and legalized drugs run rampant."
Who knew our humble little words could tip the scales of civilization? There's much to fear, as Mr. O'Reilly reminds us – though he forgot to mention nuclear war, biological terrorism, and the end of the world as we know it.
'Tis the Season for Persecution Complexes and Legal Battles
Americans have been primed for three years solid to worry endlessly about color-coded terror alerts, dark-skinned Satanic boogymen, and scary happenings of all kinds. But there's no better way to turn us into hysterical jitterbugs than to tell us we're on the verge of being persecuted into extinction.
Despite the fact that there's a church on every corner and a born-again Christian manning the White House, American Christians have gotten in the habit of feeling victimized at every turn; the unspoken sentiment is that democracy and Christianity just don't mix.
Conservative pundits, talk show hosts, televangelists and politicians have sounded the alarm: Traditional American principles like the separation of church and state will destroy our religion! If we can't put our 10 Commandments or our nativity scene in the public schools or on the steps of the Supreme Court, then by jingles we have no religious liberty! We'll soon be thrown to the lions by our heathen countrymen!
Of course there are some, like Charlie Reese, who don't share this exhilarating panic: "I don’t think nativity scenes belong on courthouse lawns and or other government properties." Well that's no fun. Mr. Reese seems to feel calm about the whole thing, as if American principles are fine as they are. One might even say he doesn't see the need to rewrite the Constitution!
In the midst of this civil war of words and symbols, I feel a certain nostalgia for days of yore when people were merry at this time of year. Perhaps I should get all worked up and join a furious emailing campaign to get my religious symbols installed at the IRS building, but right now I'd rather sip hot chocolate and listen to my Boston Boys Choir CD.
On this cold wintry morning, staring at my still-unsigned XXX cards, I can't help wishing for the days when Americans weren't so doggoned uptight, always looking for reasons to argue and fuss.
Just Reminiscing…
I remember when Christians were filled with the joy of celebrating Christ's birth – the point of the whole thing. We had our hands full, what with directing the squirming kids in the nativity scenes on the church lawn, or lighting the XXX displays in our front yards. In those blissful pre-Bush days, we had neither the time nor the inclination to war with our neighbors about courthouses and greetings and Harry Potter and Halloween and the Pledge of Allegiance and such.
When I was a kid, our neighbors weren't so fed up with us, nor we with them. I remember when the words "tolerance" and "acceptance" didn't mean something bad, they meant something good. To be tolerant and accepting meant that we were neighborly – good American citizens.
But times have changed and I'd better be careful what I say. So I'll wish you a Merry Something or Other. Or, if you prefer, Happy You-Name-It. J
December 22, 2004
