Featured photo: Little Angel | © 165106 on Pixabay
Not only do the first annual statements or reviews arrive in the house or inbox, but also the first Christmas greetings. Some senders have skillfully combined the whole thing and so I will certainly be able to marvel at many more gems in the coming days.
My better half has attached the first Christmas ball to our metal Christmas tree and the second candle is already burning on the steel wreath. And since tonight I can't get the following two lines out of my head: "Every year the Christ child comes - down to earth, where we are humans." The text comes from William Hey and the melody of Friedrich Silcher, which was already mentioned here recently because it is also the Schiller's Lore-Ley set to music. Meanwhile trills Bing Grosby a few Christmas songs, my little server takes care of that. You don't have to travel to Easter Island straight away to get into the Christmas spirit - in our part of the world, trade and business alone ensure that we all get into a better mood as early as possible.
A big, fat, white old man is now responsible for this all over the world, and if Hollywood had its way, then it could also be a big, fat, black old man. In any case, big and strong and man, which is probably due to the two traditional figures Nicholas and his servant Ruprecht, who have been traveling in our region for a while to “beat Christianity into the children”.
Even during my own kindergarten days, both were probably one and the same person (usually a father of one of the children) due to a lack of staff, which certainly didn't simplify the original division of tasks. Perhaps that's precisely why the black male Santa Claus from Hollywood recently got an almost evil female white elf at his side. In any case, people are giving a little more thought to how this old custom can be brought into modern times.
Without question, it has been achieved for a long time that Santa Claus is, if not universal, at least global, and regardless of whether Chinese, Indians, Africans, Europeans or Arabs, everyone can relate to Santa Claus. Which child would want to miss the opportunity to get presents?
And while intellectuals around the world continue to think about what gender, skin color, religion or even degree of physical or mental disability Santa Claus should or must have and whether he is more benign or evil, peace-loving or violent, something has been happening since the second year 2 years ago “the Christ child came down to earth, where we are humans”. In all the hustle and bustle, most of us have now gone completely unnoticed and apparently without any consequences.
Just between you and me, which of my readers has ever thought about what gender or even skin color the Christ child has - but if you personify your faith at all, you're more likely to think of a little angel and that's probably it - maybe except for those angels from Hollywood — to be sexless. And who among us, when we speak to our God, thinks about whether he is a man, a woman, or something in between?
Maybe the counting method was or is with them Ten commandments, in which the second reads: “Thou shalt not make for thee an image” – not so bad. It might even have saved us a lot of hassle, such as: B. the one in front of our city theater, namely when a gay Jesus entered the stage there.
Which leads us again to the Christ child, who can be completely unencumbered by all these questions, what he is or perhaps just wants to be. And so in the remaining two weeks we can concentrate on what the actual “message” of our Christian faith is and perhaps even rejoice that the Christ child continues to come to us humans, as he has for the last 2 years.
In the meantime, I'm thinking about whether I should "put a few Advent thoughts on paper" and I certainly won't be able to avoid publishing a review of the year by the turn of the year at the latest. Until then, I wish all of my readers a contemplative Advent, regardless of whether they are on the Aida, Easter Island, Hawaii or just in one of the far too common trenches in the world.
