Stephen Swanson

Stephen Swanson moves on to something nicer for the holidays…the holidays! After a recent conversation group at church about the meanings and importance of the Advent season, Stephen tries to piece together something from the scraps of wrapping paper, tinsel, and fallen pine needles.

We are Filled…Literally

I’ve always enjoyed the period from Thanksgiving to New Years. Not only is the weather changing and the semester is winding down, but we enter into food season where the kitchen is filled with enticing smells every week, if not every day. There’s the prep for Thanksgiving, which leads to leftovers, which leads to stock made from leftovers, which leads to soups made from the stock from the leftovers, and this progresses on to cookies, prep for Christmas when the cycle continues, just in time for New Years, football, and Chinese New Years…mmmmm…

How Unfilling?

Of course this plenty has its negative side, gluttony of food and stuffs. In addition to a time of food, family, and friends, it is the time when advertisers tell us that we need to fill ourselves with HD TVs, Nintendo DS’s, plastic toys, and salad shooters. We all know, intellectually, that these things do not feed us through these cold months. We know that we should not spend THAT much, “But, it’s Chrismas,” right?

The 24-hour cable news machine also tells us of our emptiness, as it tries to fill its own. The TVs at school, tuned to Headline News, consistently tell all passersby how much they need to argue about the name of the season, “Holidays” v. “Christmas,” about how one should or should not spend, “Organic” v “Local”/“Wal-Mart” v “Ma & Pa”/etc., and about what to do when you realize you’ve ended up overdoing it, debt consolidation/gold/ diets/gyms/ Gold’s Gyms & Diets.

I go to church and hear the same passages from Luke, see the cute kids in bathrobes, listen to the handbells, and I love those familiar rituals, but something leaves me unfulfilled. It is not that we need more “Christ in Christmas” or need to acknowledge “The Reason for the Season”. It is so much more simple and complex than that.

“Filling” is Filling

Rather, I want people to think outside of the platitudes and simple expressions of faith and fulfillment. What is so energizing and exciting, to me, about the food part of the seasons from late November and into February is not the consumption but rather the “advent”.

I don’t mean the candles in the wreath or the little doors with candies behind them. I seek the “arrival that has been awaited” that advent really means. It is in the preparation and that magical instant at the door when you invite the visitors in to your warmth, smells, and company: your hospitality. No matter your religion or spirituality, the meaning behind this time of year touches the commonalities within all of us to be both host and hosted and gifter and giftee.

The connection between “love”, “joy”, “peace”, and “hope” of advent does surround the “Christ” candle in my tradition, but that messiah also points to the duality at the center of both Christianity and humanity, more broadly: that we are all both citizens and strangers and need connection to remember the transcendent power of hope in bringing peace and joy through love.

And so I ask that you all consider what you are feeding yourself and others, and I ask that you look for the fulfillment of the self through the other.

Also…learn to make your own stock. It’s not that hard and is soo tasty.

Travis Griffith

Christmas has always been my all-time favorite part of the year.

Well, maybe it’s in a tie with Halloween. And hot summer days on the lake. Regardless, I love Christmas because of the magic it creates and for the love I feel on Christmas Day and the eve before.

I love Christmas because of childhood memories of waking up at 3 a.m. and excitedly but cautiously making my way towards the Christmas tree to see if Santa had come yet. I was never disappointed, and the magical feeling of seeing a new toy bathed in the soft glow of the tree’s light has never left me. I call it the Christmas Feeling, but it’s a feeling that still crops up, occasionally, year-round.

As sacrilegious as it may seem to say this, Christmas for me isn’t about the birth of Christ, but about love, generosity, thankfulness and family. All things Christ represents, I suppose, but I reject the story of Jesus’ birth happening in a manger on Dec. 25.

Not long ago a friend saw some of my writing here about my search for spirituality and asked me questions about what I believe. She’s a devout Christian and a giving, loving human. She asked if I had ever considered Christianity and then invited me to her church.

I respectfully declined.

The truth is, I have considered Christianity very carefully and I appreciate many of the values it teaches (and loathe others). What I cannot accept are the stories behind the religion; Christmas being one of them.

I try to keep an open and respectful eye on all of humanity. Humans have been on Earth much longer than 2,000 years and through it all, humanity has one constant: a desire for the spiritual. It seems people today don’t give credit to the advances and traditions of ancient people. December 25th and the winter solstice have been important as early as 4500 BC; acknowledged in everything from ancient Ireland’s Newgrange burial chamber, Babylon’s Isis and Osiris myths, the Roman’s Festival of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, and the modern day story of Christ’s birth.

When Roman Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion in 350, other forms of worshiping were banned. Rather than changing old traditions, Pope Julius I declared Dec. 25 Christ’s birthday.

My intent here isn’t to persuade people away from Jesus’ story. I believe Christ was a real person, an heir of God, who’s purpose was to spread the message of love. If your truth lies in Christianity, revel in it!

During the holiday season, it’s the Christmas Feeling that I celebrate though, along with many thousands of years of humanity’s desire to celebrate our planet, our families and the love that holds us all together.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth, friends.

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Travis Griffith, who recently left behind the corporate marketing world, choosing family and writing in lieu of “a comfortable life” financially, is a former atheist trying to define what leading a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. captures only a fraction of his passion for fatherhood.