Growing up in Germany has given me so many memories and traditions surrounding Christmas. As it is, I can now never seem to find Christmas presents I’m really excited about; whereas while there, I always managed to cover everyone on my list with one trip to the Christkindlmarkt (not to mention the freedom of sipping Glühwein and munching Mandeln ).
It also afforded me the experience of many Germanic/Alpine/Bavarian Christmas traditions. And while most were amazing (Saint Nicholas Day on December 6th, great candy and food, great drink, etc), one stood out as the most awesome–metal tradition around: a face to fear around the Season:
And that face, was
He’s the antithesis of Saint Nicholas. While Nicholas gives you toys and gifts and such in your boot if you’ve been good, Krampus comes for the kids who have been naughty. He beats them mercilessly with a stick, stuffs them into his sack and takes them back to his cave in the mountains to devour for his Christmas dinner. (In fact, in some traditions, he not only devours them once, but digests them alive, only to devour them again and again for all time.)
It still surprises me that this face of terror and fear is not more widely known–that, or it’s given sway to other things that are “nice” up front but hold the same meaning. Elf on a Shelf, that “better watch out, better not cry,’ Christmas song.
It’s funny to me that when it comes to the nice faces, we always seem to not only have a choice, but if we choose poorly, we get what’s coming to us. But when it’s a face like Krampus–even if we’re talking children who “chose” to be naughty, who were provided many times in their life to accept the true meaning and spirit of Christmas but who still didn’t “accept Christmas into their hearts”, it’s considered horrific. And–to perhaps the slightly more educated, it’s called what it is: fear mongering.
Fear of a scale of naughty/niceness that you cannot control.
“Have I been good enough?”
“Am I naughty?”
I mean, is there really any way of knowing for sure? What is the cutoff of being considered naughty? If I’m one step above that am I considered nice? Am I able to avoid Krampus when he comes around?
And that’s what I love so much about Krampus. I mean, at least in Bavaria they give him the face that he deserves. They don’t dress it up to look like something it’s not–a Monster. Here in the States no matter how you justify it, that same fear is present for children around the holidays, it’s just packaged to not look like the (a) monster that truly elicits fear rather than love.
As I said, we have songs treating Santa like a ‘Big Brother’ government which we utterly wish to avoid; “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good…” (Or worse that damn spying, ‘Elf on the Shelf’—a spy sent to watch your every choice and behavior)
Will I get what I want? Or will I get nothing but coal (still useful if you think about it, but it doesn’t compare to getting everything you want free of any service of yours)?
Have you been good this year?
The single most terrifying question to a child with any ability of abstract thought.
“Uhhh, I don’t know. What do you consider good? What will happen if I’m not? I think I’ve been good, but is my frame of reference what’s being used here? What is good anyway?”
This reminds me very much so of another tradition based on fear, that can also be celebrated this time of year amongst another group of people.
Jesus.
Now, before getting in to what I do not mean with that, I will get into what I do mean.
I doubt many are unfamiliar with the Evangelical traditional view of Heaven and Hell—I myself grew up striving to understand and reconcile it with my thoughts of God and God’s character.
As ‘tradition’ (as which I shall here after refer to it as), the view of the afterlife bears a salient resemblance to the aforementioned Christmas traditions (indubitably so with the German Christmas tradition).
Firstly so, it’s not merely pertaining to receiving what you want—to which is a genuinely self-centered, selfish view of the world and beyond it, but survival: will I get paradise, Heaven, and outwit punishment, Hell?
Secondly, have I been good enough?
Am I naughty?
Have I done everything that I should to obviate Hell and achieve Heaven? Have I said the right thing, done the right thing? Am I part of the Elect? What is considered ‘the right thing’ for me to do anyway? Do I have to pray, believe, be baptized, and ‘sin’ no more?
What do you (God) consider good? What will happen if I’m not? I think I’ve been good, but is my frame of reference what’s being used here? What is good anyway?
Our view of God is the same as that of Santa. “He sees you when you’re sleeping, He knows when you’re awake, He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for God’s sake…”
Is Krampus going to come and take me to Hell? To punish me forever for not ‘getting it right’ regardless of the ‘wrongness’ of the presentation?
GAHHH!
Scare tactics! All scare tactics to elicit appropriate, intended, desired responses. If there’s no controlling Truth itself, there’s no controlling it’s revelation to each and every one of us on Earth. But you better make damn sure that there are those who will strive to control it by controlling how it is presented to the masses. Religion may very well be the opiate of the masses; that does not requisite Truth to be the same.
There is no Fear in Love—rather, perfect Love casts out Fear.
Regardless of how this season is celebrated—be it Santa of the Birth of Jesus (or neither one of those), it has been traditionally a Season celebrating love.
And Love is something—like Truth, that we can’t control.
Love is something that is entirely self-less.
It’s when we try to control it that we make it fearful. We make laws, we build walls, and we go to war for something to which gives itself freely, utterly independent of us and our actions—naughty or nice.
At the risk of alienating myself from quite a few people I respect (and many I may not, but honor their wisdom), I have decided to go forward with publishing this post. I’ve been very apprehensive about this, not for many reasons—as one might assume, but for just one. Namely, I don’t think anything will come of it, and if I myself feel that way, then it is merely wasted words in a wasted conflict (of sorts).
Yet, I’ve kept coming back to the thought time and time again, and—for the life of me, cannot figure out why there is a passion and desire to post this, up until the moment where I am to, of course.
But someone I do respect very highly once said that the thing you have no desire to publish is more often than not the very thing that ought to be published. So, I shall do so—with some background first, of course, and a bold notation that this is ultimately observation.
I began—as many do, viewing the ‘Occupy’ movement as something ridiculous. Just a bunch of Millennialists (post Baby Boomer generation) hopped up on too much Red Bull and V for Vendetta. As I started to read more, though, and talk to people involved—both politically and judicially, my views began to shift.
This is what I see.
1.
Those that believe in something but cannot clearly articulate it are not mad men who do not know what it is they want, feel, think, or believe. The man who truly believes in something will always try to explain that belief, that idea, whether poorly or with great skill. It is the man who does not believe in anything who finds himself content to rationalize his lack of belief as something too subtle or lofty to be explained.
2.
It has always seemed to be the case that what comes easier and more naturally for humanity is to seek and find a villain to fight against, rather than discover a cause to fight for;
it is much easier for us to fight against a villain, than for a cause.
This must not be taken lightly. As is the case with creation, with those artists who create based on creation, and the critics who create (or destroy) the artistic interpretation of creation; that is, that the further away from something tangible you get, the less your point is valid. To critique is to take something already created and either create something new, or create something that is really nothing at all.
There is a fine line when being a critic. One must not stray too far from their own expression, lest they shape emptiness, nothing at all in its stead. If at all possible, create something new in place of what you are against, and persevere in that endeavor.
3.
While I disagree with looking for a scapegoat in the dubbed ‘1%’, rich misers to do battle against, these individuals must be distinguished from the ‘very wealthy;’ and verily, must also be distinguished from what was thought to be an old miser in times past. In those that are very wealthy, there are still good people, for there are still all kinds of people. There can actually be saints among priests. There can actually be heroes among soldiers. There can actually be doctors who have really grown wealthy by curing their patients.
But among the rich misers, the 1%, you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away.
These are not ‘Ebenezer Scrooges,’ nor are they ‘Scrooge McDucks’ for that matter; these are not men who desire money for the sheer obsession and love of money.
For men like those can be pitied, and one can find themselves doing so.
Ebenezer closed himself off from the world, and pined and pined over his wealth. Scrooge McDuck loved having money because he loved it itself, he swam in the amount of money he had.
These men were like any other mad man with a material obsession, only theirs is wealth, gold.
Today’s miser, the 1%, has a different type of obsession. Theirs is not like the Scrooges of old, but more like the 9 Lords of Men in ‘the Lord of the Rings,’ whose obsession (and ultimately, what consuming) was power.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then a desire for absolute power implies absolute corruption heretofore.
4.
“Man is made with one head. Not two or three.”
If a movement wishes to represent the people, namely, the common man, the 99%, then it is to have one head, one purpose, one goal. It is much easier to kill a ferocious giant with multiple heads, for the heads will always argue amongst themselves, leaving the giant vulnerable to attack.
However, the giant with one head is more of a challenge to kill, for its only focus is on devouring its enemy.
5.
The government should restrain the debaucheries allotted for in our country’s ‘freedom;’ the abnormal liberties taken by the few, not the normal.
The cloying humor in it all though, is that these have been reversed. We are free in our abnormalities, but our normal liberties…
“…the normal man, the decent discontented citizen, wants to protest against unfair law courts. He wants to expose the brutalities of the police. He wants to make game of a vulgar pawnbroker who is made a Peer. He wants to publicly warn people against unscrupulous capitalists and suspicious finance.
If he is run in for doing this (as he will be) he wants to proclaim the character or known prejudices of the judge who tries him. If he is sent to prison (as he will be) he wants to have a clear and civilized sentence, telling him when he will come out”… “I can write in some solemn quarterly an elaborate article explaining that God is the devil; I can write in some cultured weekly an aesthetic fancy describing how I would like to eat a boiled [or basted] baby. The thing I must not write is a rational criticism of the men and institutions of my country. I must not write about how never before has it been so easy for those with money and wealth to slip bills through Parliament [Congress, Senate, etc.] for the purpose of locking someone up, bailing someone free, raising someone to power who will in turn keep power where it is desired, to silence those asking the right questions, and to protect high-placed officials. “-G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men.
And so…
The Occupy Manifesto
“The one case for Revolution is that it is the only quite clean and complete road to anything—even to restoration. Revolution alone can be not merely a revolt of the living, but also a resurrection of the dead.” –G.K.C.
There was a time when our country stood on the most basic of principles—One Nation, Under God; that is, to be equal under God. This did not (does not) entail equal distributions of what God had blessed some with and not others, but an equality that transcended (transcends) class, race, gender, age, amount of talents allotted, or lastly, one being made of ‘gold’ and another ‘clay.’
We call for a return to the beginning. A return to being equal in something far bigger and greater than any one person, government, or people.
We do not–nor cannot, adhere to an Atheistic, Secularist, Darwinist view. For a call to the equality we seek supposes that the ‘survival of the fittest’ mode of thinking only hinders our cause, not helps it. If this were truly the case, then the 1% would be considered ‘the fittest’ and the 99% are doomed for annihilation.
Someone who I wish to give no credit to once said more or less, “God is dead.”
It’s time to resurrect (awaken) God.
In Christendom, the theology of what is known as “the Kingdom” is pivotal in maintaining a foundation, and as our country was founded on these core theologies, they must be understood in order to be called upon.
This Kingdom calls for all to be treated as equals, in freedom, liberty, and government, regardless of giftings–or lack thereof, given. To recognize that those made of ‘gold’ and those made of ‘clay’ are equal on the level that they are still both ‘made.’ (rf. 2 Timothy 2:20)
This equality is not contingent on the substance that one is made from, be it gold, clay, or any other fancy the creator chooses. The equality lay solely in the purpose given to each.
That each has a purpose and each is made for a reason.
And let us be equal in this.
Let not the gold look down on the clay. Let not the clay despise the gold.
So, inequality based on wealth, class, and so forth, can be kept: for who are we to question what God has assigned to each?
But security,
freedom,
a voice,
these things should not be allotted solely to those given much; but to all based on equality of creation.
Simply put, those given ‘one talent’ should not be forced into a system of usage of that talent based on terms and conditions that those with ‘many talents’ may choose to impose. (rf. Matthew 25: 14-30)
This does not say that those placed in authority over us should not be adhered to, for without respect for authority, comes a descent into chaos.
But authority claiming to be by the people, for the people, but without any regard of the people is not a genuine authority, and as darkness must be brought to light, and lies to truth, this falsity must be as well.
The equality in which we seek cannot be achieved by what we currently view as our ‘democracy.’
A democracy is a government of the people. Yet we have what? A government of two party politics; both claiming to have the genuine interests of the people in mind and heart. “There is a real danger in two parties with two policies: they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen. They make the ordinary citizen barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to do anything except prefer one existing policy to another.
We have not got real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people.
We shall have real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people.
When the ordinary man will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about.” –G.K.C.
Our democracy holds that the people have the right to answer questions (though only by choosing one of the two ways offered), but the people have no right to ask them.
“For the powerful class [1%] will choose two courses of action, both of them safe for itself, and then give the democracy the gratification of taking one course or the other.”-G.K.C.
The government is truly so far distanced from the people that the people’s voice is not verily heard. Yet it is hidden under the guise that without the people, the government would crumble.
No, this democracy is one where the people vote on preconceived solutions to problems chosen not by us.
It’s claimed to be our vote, but how is it our vote when the choices for solutions weren’t chosen by us? If it is all out of our hands, then what is the point of voting?
Equality, and our voice–everyman’s voice, cannot be truly heard when we are only allowed to shout one way or another.
Verily though, a government this far removed from the people is not the government’s fault.
It is the people.
As such, the government cannot be held to fix a problem with itself.
For the people to correct the problem, the people must take the reigns of control back from the government. We must hold ourselves responsible for the monster we created.
But just as you retrain an animal who has gone wild how to be submissive, and who is in control, the people must do the same to the government.
For the government to be afraid of its people (and not the other way around), the people must give the government something to fear.
This is not an extremist call to acts of terrorism; but it is not a passive and placid call as to write a letter to your local congressman or woman who you have no knowledge of or relationship with.
So what does it look like for the people to cause/create fear in their government?
How do the people attain an equal say in things when they are constantly and consistently being forced out of the room?
How do the voiceless attain a voice?
Is it by shouting when they are shouting at you?
All that is attained there is that both parties become hoarse, and there is victory for none.
Is it by remaining silent (or worse, a cacophony of different thoughts vocalized) when the other is asking what is desired?
This only achieves a blind eye being turned your way, and ignorance of your plight when your voice, your cause is finally found.
It must be noted that there is no such thing as an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
There may exist an unstoppable force in this universe, or an immovable object (in fact, they may more than likely very well be one and the same); but to say that an impass will only be reached with conflict, is to say that both sides are too limp, too placid to stand firm.
When a person (or people) is pushed around, until they’ve had enough, what are the options? Push back?
Or become strong enough as to not be able to be pushed, immovable.
Real strength does not come from standing over the body your beaten, bloody opponent in battle.
Real strength lay in being beaten, broken, bloody, yet remaining immovable.
For one may think that it takes all your strength to remain standing when you are being beaten, but I say that there is a hidden strength somewhere deep inside the one who stands firm.
And while they may very well become exhausted and near unable to stand, when that person sees their aggressor weak, exhausted, unable to throw another fist: it is then that that strength arises from deep within, and when the aggressor cannot lift another finger to torment, then the man–beaten and bloody, yet unmoved, will have the strength to carry on,
to stand victorious,
to build and to do as they ought to be done, not merely as they are desired to be.
And the world will be better for this, that one man (or the 99% of unified one mans) scorned and covered with scars, still strove with their last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star!
So what shall we say then?
Are we to remain voiceless, a cacophony of sound like the chatter of geese, fighting against an unknown villain of alleged tyranny disguised as government, and big business, and the 1% who influence it all, or are we going to rise a unified front based not on race, gender, class, or status, but unified in fighting for one cause, one purpose, one goal:
to take the reigns of the government back into the hands of those it affects–us, the people;
to stand firm when we are pushed around, pepper sprayed, arrested based on laws and regulations they control to their favor and gain;
not for equal standing, or a socialistic redistribution of wealth, (for some are made of gold and some of clay, some are given many talents while others merely one; and who are we to question the purpose of it all?) but to fight for the right of equality;
to have a say in the running of our home, our country;
to take the reigns of the government out of the hands of only those who can pay to hold them, and put them back in to the hands where they belong,
a government of the people,
United!
Fighting for that right, without question or pause!
Willing to march in to Hell for this heavenly cause!
What do we desire? Our voices heard. Equality in government—a government in the hands of the people it serves.
How shall we fight? Standing firm.
How shall we win? By giving the government a reason to fear the people.
I leave the rest up to the people. Though I have always been one whom the notion of a coup has appealed to, a revolt is something I am ill trained in. Nor am I versed in just how this particular course of action should be. I can only say that to revolt is to not do what they expect us as the people to do. What that is, I cannot say, for I am not political. I would imagine that one would not participate in voting, but even if the masses did not vote, I have a guttural feeling that laws would still be passed, and the government would still find a way to run and make ill decisions.
So I leave with more a question than a statement:
How do we give those who control government something to fear, causing them to drop the reigns for the people to pick up?
When I was really young I had a best friend named Sean. We were about the same age, blonde haired, blue eyed; and considered each other like brothers. See I was the youngest of three children—I have twin older sisters 4 years my superior. Sean, I don’t know. But the point is that we were both in need of familial, brotherly type relations given circumstance.
Here’s a picture of us:
Adorable, right?
Well as sometimes happens, friends move away; which is exactly what happened with Sean.
Sure, I found new friends (I’m great at making friends; keeping them on the other hand…not so much), and I’m assuming that so did Sean; but there was still a void left by his absence. So I began to imagine he was still around.
And so began my first experience with imaginary friends. Sean was there, but real Sean didn’t know about it. And while ‘Imaginary Friend’ Sean was based on a lot of what I experienced of the real Sean, I expanded on him; making Imaginary Sean what I would have not only wanted of Real Sean, but of a friend in general. We became, in fact, brothers, Imaginary Sean and I, confidants, and Imaginary Sean was always supportive of my childhood antics and schemes.
Funny thing is when I finally met Real Sean years later, I had found that I actually preferred Imaginary Sean over the real thing. He was a better Sean to me.
Well so, years past and I found that I had developed a new imaginary friend; this one I called “God.” I’m sure a lot of us might have created the same friend, and many of the traits of our imaginary friends might even line up: Creator of the Universe—EVERYTHING, really; sustainer; go to for problem solving; who we “give” our problems to; and most importantly, “works all things to the ‘good’ of those who ‘love Him’ and are ‘called’ according to His purpose.” I mean, sure, much like Sean, I built up a friend based not only on what I’ve learned about, but also have experienced personally; yet…truth is, my friend God is just as imaginary as my friend Sean (the Imaginary version, not the Real version).
Therefore, I decided that I didn’t believe in God anymore.
Not the one I can create, craft, control, anyway.
Do I even know the real one?
Does anyone?
Well, on a side note, people used to believe that what we call reality was anything we could touch, smell, taste, hear, and see. It has only been in recent history—from microscopes to macroscopes that we’ve learned that information acquired solely from our sensory inputs accounts for only a small fraction of what can be considered ‘reality.’
It’s true.
I know this because I took a physics 101 course in college.
Now, my undergrad was Philosophy, not science, but what that tells me is that even though we can do the Scientific Method and find out all sorts of stuff about the known world, there’s still a lot of…stuff that we don’t know that may be more real than we can fathom.
What if something were more real than ‘reality’? Could it appear to have the same properties as something less real–ethereal almost in appearance but nevertheless, more real than reality? What would that make us?
Would we then become the ethereal material? Would we become the imaginary friends?
You know in many ways I’ve become an atheist lately. I’ve given up knowing the imaginary. Even myself.
What do you call an atheist who doesn’t believe he is real?
At the end of each of the Gospels, God dies.
And yet it’s still included in the story. Like it’s somehow important and ‘Good News’ that God is dead.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus just shows up Sunday night after one Hell of a weekend, and most importantly, dying on Friday.
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After this he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.” (John 20: 19-20)
Well, so Jesus came through doors locked for fear. Like, he just appeared. Out of nowhere.
Or maybe it wasn’t nowhere.
Maybe he appeared out of everywhere.
Into our nowhere.
And freaks us out. For we thought God was dead.
And, and maybe, just maybe, we’re scared because either God’s ethereal and able to mysteriously appear and walk through walls and been seen after death; or, we’re more scared because maybe we’re the ones that are ethereal, we’re the ones that are imagined, we’re not as real as we think and when reality comes into imaginary it can pass through walls and show up wherever it wants because it’s all part of the ‘Creators’ imagination and the Creator can show up anywhere and do anything because it’s His created world, His imagined world.
But then he shows his wounds. And the imaginary world and what takes place in it sort of blends with the real one.
Maybe even to the extent that the imagineer allows the imagination to kill the reality so that it can connect the imaginary to the real, kind of like a door, or a way; a way from imagination to reality.
I’ve seen a lot of cheesy science fiction to know that anything becoming ‘real’ hurts. It’s never a simple process of putting material to immaterial. And usually, just usually, it involves death.
Something’s death.
In Frankenstein, the monster is created by a crafting together of dead parts. All those people that made up Frankenstein’s monster had to die first before he was created. And it was no easy process to do so either.
A running theme in my life lately has been the impossibility sometimes to distinguish between the act of creation and the act of destruction. And more than that, it’s regularly the case that something must be destroyed for something else to be created. Often enough, the two can look so similar that the only way of knowing if someone is creating or destroying is to know the person.
But what if the thing destroyed isn’t real, what if it’s the imaginary? Can it still be a thing destroyed? Well it can if the real thing comes into its place. As much as I imagined ‘imaginary’ Sean to be real, the imaginary was dispelled once the real Sean showed up.
The question is, do we want it?
Or do we prefer the imaginary over the reality? Especially if we discover we’re the imaginary, we’re the product of an imagination.
I often find myself agreeing with Atheists over the disbelief in “God.” For I have felt that disbelief myself.
I’ve said to God, “I don’t know you.”
Though the more I think on that statement, the more I am forced to realize that it isn’t about me knowing God. But rather the opposite, really. It’s about God knowing me. I mean, even Jesus said in Matthew that there will be those that he will say to, “depart, I never knew you.” It’s like reality knowing us–truth knowing us, Jesus KNOWING US is far more important, than us “knowing” it–Him.
After all, if I’m imaginary, the more I’m known the more real I become. And the more real I become, the more I know reality.
If I had let go of Imaginary Sean, no matter how awesome I made him out to be, I would have been able to get to know the real Sean.
And when I stop believing in my Imaginary God, no matter how ‘real’ I’ve built Him up to be, when I become an Atheist in regards to my imaginary friend, the more I allow myself to experience the real God. Not only that, but the more want to know the real God.
So I’m an Atheist. I don’t believe in the God I’ve constructed, the God of my imagination.
But I’m ready to meet the real God.
No matter how scary. Because the real God shows up when I lock myself away in fear. Fear of what could happen to me, but also fear of the real God.
The real God scares me by showing how imaginary my reality is, then says “Peace,” and then shows me his hands, his side, his wounds, his Way for me to know Him.
And I become real; not by knowing reality, but by reality knowing me.
Leaving La Mancha 