Some Thoughts As We Go Into The Holiday Season
With the Kickoff of the Holiday and Christmas Underway, I'm often left puzzled and bewildered as to why things never seem to change, given the ideals around this time of year of benevolence and a new beginning, no matter your faith or social standing.
It comes as a surprise to me that Christmas and Hanukkah have become times more of want than just need. Christmas, to me, growing up, was about clothing, a toy, a Christmas orange, and maybe a candy cane or two. We usually did not receive much, but we gave twice as much in return.
No one went hungry in our neighbourhood, and Christmas was usually spent with numerous students of my mother's who could not afford it or had no place to celebrate or have Christmas dinner. Or coworkers who had nowhere else to go to. It was like having an instant extended family for the 12 days of the Christmas season.
What was most surprising at the start of St. Nicholas Day was learning the true Irony of the Patron Saint of Christmas. Father Richard sat down and explained to me that Nicholas was not only the Patron Saint of Christmas but also that of thieves.
Puzzled in my thoughts and thinking why it was that the patron saint of Christmas would also be that of thieves, given that the eighth commandment was thou shalt not steal one always had to think but why?
Why do people steal? What reason do they want, or is it needed? A rich man commits fraud or steals out of greed, power, or want. I don't have to go far to prove that as my own father, who had more money than he could ever deal with, found himself convicted of fraud in the Conservative Caucus Communication Scandal in Saskatchewan for a bit of money that wouldn't feed his greed for a month.,
On the other side of the coin, then it seems obvious. Not all people who work in the world nowadays, and those who have been totally displaced, don't necessarily steal, but with the rise of shoplifting convictions and the Metropolitan Toronto Police Chief saying that shoplifting has become a much more organized crime, it has become a far more serious matter..
Those who steal to survive are one thing, but those who steal to benefit themselves are something completely different. Do I condone theft? Of course not, but to many it becomes in their own mind a need of last resort.
I'm not a rich man, but I do understand the difference between needs and wants, and the value of Father Richard's story related to me 50 years ago, and that being when peoples wants are in fact their needs. They are driven to steal to feed, clothe, and help support themselves, so that they have someone to watch over them as well.
It comes as no surprise that, in the Christmas story, the angel first appeared to the shepherds as the lowest of the low; at the time, they were considered thieves and bandits. It also reminds me that we are born into poverty. Every one of us grows up knowing that without our needs being provided by our parents, we do not thrive, but when greed and lust enter the equation, we divide ourselves and lose the meaning of who, as a society, we wish to become.
I've often heard a quote by Lester Bangs, an editor for Rolling Stone Magazine over the years, that says, “The only true currency we have in this world is when we are being honest and unmerciful with each other.” If so, maybe, just maybe, in starting the season, we can finally turn our society from greed and wantonness to one of justice and social and economic equality.
Wouldn't that be something, Nicholas!
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