A special Christmas Address by Fr. Lancelot Pereira, S.J. - a member of indiayogi's Advisory Panel. We welcome your Feedback on this article.

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CHRISTMAS IN DECEMBER 2001: "BOTH - AND" PARADOXES

For a thoughtful minority, the new millennium really began in January 2001. That would make December 2001 the last month of the first year of the third millenium. A couple of thousand years of the Christian era, but men are still busy fighting for blood and guts, or maybe honor and revenge, or even perhaps loyalty to God and tribe.

No year of any in the last 2000 years has been without its big or small wars, somewhere or the other. There is always a fresh "reason" to kill, maim or torture. Is what we have now "the first war of the third millenium" (President Bush) or only the latest excuse for one more violent demonstration of "business as usual"? The cynic could easily argue that saying "Happy Christmas" this year is the unhappy formula of a sick joke from some downright hypocrites.

Well, we at indiayogi.com still want to greet you. Our website lives by "shantih" and repeats the blessings our sages invoked on all that exists. We foster dialogue, an understanding of each other and respect for varied points of view. We are positively for "both - and", not merely "either - or". We value paradox.

Hence our Christmas message this year is pitched at those who courageously continue to love life and all living things, those who relish the Indian capacity for joyous celebration and who desire to discover meaning in human tragedy.

Terrorism may be the offshoot of the gap between rich and poor, or of the failure to foster political freedom and equality for disadvantaged groups. That we must struggle to destroy those imbalances is obvious. But not in a one-sided way. We cannot allow ourselves to be drowned in an "either - or" situation.

There is another side to that situation - the spiritual dimension at the heart of most human problems! Can we live by the "both - and" and thus be followers of both Chanakaya and Kabir? Violence is also a sickness of the spirit!

The external behavior and conversation of many of us today betrays scant awareness of this other spiritual dimension. Whatever happened to the approach of the Sufi mystics and of the bhakti poet-musicians who, for example, deeply influenced the lives of people in Kashmir, Punjab and Maharashtra?

Our Christmas message will mean little to those who prefer seeing things in black and white terms, or to those who refuse to accept that God can take our crooked lines and still write straight.

If Christmas means anything, it means that God decided to do something about his beloved, bloodthirsty creatures by actually becoming one of their own little babies. The wisdom of such foolishness is not immediately obvious. The Lord came not with the powers or privileges we humans so admire, but as a helpless, little child born into a poor, obscure family in a "little town called Bethlehem."

He arrived into our world in circumstances where the political authorities had obliged his pregnant mother to undertake a difficult journey in the cold of winter - merely to be registered in some official list. There was "no room for him in the inn" so he was born in a cattle-stable with animals and straw.

Today's displaced refugee in Afghanistan would surely understand. But this was the Israel of 2000 years ago. And - no surprise, folks! - it is the third millenium and we are still fighting in both places. We must deal with a world of paradox.

To me, the worth of each human being is made clear when we offer tender, loving care to anyone in need without exception. And this in fact is the underlying significance of God being born into our human family as a helpless child. One does not have to be a Christian to rejoice in the paradox that the helpless child grew up to influence the spirit of service as perhaps no other in human history. A "Christian" who does not serve humans does not deserve the name. But does anyone who refuses to serve others deserve to be called "human"?

The child born in Bethlehem grew into the man who said: "When struck on one cheek, offer the other"... "Love your enemies - do good to those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you and treat you badly"… "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword"… "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all else will be given to you."

We need to ask: did he really WIN? Are all of us supposed to accept injustice without hatred and to leave revenge to an invisible lord of history? Have the revolutionary insights of the babe of Bethlehem changed the world, however slowly? No straight answers are possible… It is Indian to value varied viewpoints.

We also must admit, after 2000 years of experience, that "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" does not work in the long run. To combat violence with more violence cannot be the only way. Bethlehem is only the beginning of an approach which suggests that Afghanistan is not the end. Violence first exists in the heart, but the heart is strong enough to go beyond it. No power can resist or transcend love.

It suffices then to accept the paradoxes of life and to reach out to those in need. A "Happy Christmas" to all of you - both to those who have much and those who don't.