December and Our Discontent - An Allusion and Three Quotes

“So I guess this is where I tell you what I learned - my conclusion, right? Well, my conclusion is: Hate is baggage. Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time. It’s just not worth it. Derek says it’s always good to end a paper with a quote. He says someone else has already said it best. So if you can’t top it, steal from them and go out strong. So I picked a guy I thought you’d like...”

My challenge entry is composed almost entirely of quotes from others who have said it better than I could. That first one is from the end of the disturbing 1998 film exploring white supremacy in America, American History X (Directed by Tony Kaye and starring Edward Norton). The words are spoken by the character, and narrator, Danny Vinyard. I’ll complete that quote in a minute, but here is the best summary in song of my feelings about the Christmas Holiday - thank you, Jackson Browne for releasing this in 1991, on your album with the Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin.

The Rebel Jesus

All the streets are filled with laughter and light

And the music of the season

And the merchants’ windows are all bright

With the faces of the children

And the families hurrying to their homes

As the sky darkens and freezes

Will be gathering around their hearths and tables

Giving thanks for God’s graces

And the birth of the rebel Jesus

They call him by the “Prince Of Peace”

And they call him by “The Saviour”

And they pray to him upon the sea

And in every bold endeavour

And they fill his churches with their pride and gold

As their faith in him increases

But they’ve turned the nature that I worship in

From a temple to a robber’s den

In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns

And we guard our fine possessions

And once a year when Christmas comes

We give to our relations

And perhaps we give a little to the poor

If the generosity should seize us

But if anyone of us should interfere

In the business of why there are poor

They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But pardon me if I have seemed

To take the tone of judgement

For I’ve no wish to come between

This day and your enjoyment

In a life of hardship and of earthly toil

There’s a need for anything that frees us

So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer

From a heathen and a pagan

On the side of the rebel Jesus

If cinema and song aren’t your genres, here’s my favorite for December from the world of non-fiction - this is from Martin Luther King Jr’s last book, written in 1967, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

“The assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Hyman Bookbinder, in a frank statement on December 29, 1966, declared that the long-range costs of adequately implementing programs to fight poverty, ignorance and slums will reach one trillion dollars. He was not awed or dismayed by this prospect but instead pointed out that the growth of the gross national product during the same period makes this expenditure comfortably possible. It is, he said, as simple as this: ‘The poor can stop being poor if the rich are willing to become even richer at a slower rate.’ Furthermore, he predicted that unless a ‘substantial sacrifice is made by the American people,’ the nation can expect further deterioration of the cities, increased antagonisms between races and continued disorders in the streets. He asserted that people are not informed enough to give adequate support to antipoverty programs, and he leveled a share of the blame at the government because it ‘must do more to get people to understand the size of the problem.’”

Danny Vinyard, same movie, same breath as the earlier quote I used from his character, continues with a paraphrase of the words of Abraham Lincoln, from Lincoln’s first inaugural address in 1861:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory... will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Putting quote in quote may never lead us to put hand in hand, but then again, it might.

I like to remind my Christian friends that in their tradition Hope and Joy arrived as an infant needing care and feeding - I think that’s a pretty accurate metaphor about hope and joy in general.

Here’s to us, figuring it out, together. The nights are already getting shorter, and the days are longer and brighter.