What is Most Valuable?

"Thanksgiving."  It's a single word designating in the U.S. a single-day holiday in November.  But that word "Thanksgiving" can be broken apart into two words that point forward to another U.S. holiday roughly a month later:  "Thanks" is the theme of Thanksgiving Day, and "Giving" is the theme of the gift-giving day of Christmas.

Those two words might lead us to meditate upon intangible spiritual values, but unfortunately, in that one-month period between the two holidays, we are deluged with mail-order catalogs, advertisements, store displays, and news stories that emphasize spending money.  The news media judge the very day after Thanksgiving ("Black Friday") as being a success if enough money is spent, and they call the weeks before Christmas not "Advent" but "the holiday shopping season."  The innovation of Giving Tuesday puts only a slight dent in the steamroller of consumerism heading toward Xmas.

Inflation, especially when it is rapid, understandably makes people more conscious of prices.  But over a century ago, the perceptive Oscar Wilde cautioned people that knowing "the price of everything and the value of nothing" is a cynical way to live.  Several decades ago, a handful of renegade economists tried to remind people that how the news media report economic statistics can be misleading.  Take for example how the GNP (Gross National Product) is usually treated as an indicator of progress if it is growing.  However, that indicator even goes up when a people are in car accidents, because hospital supplies and car parts are produced.  In contrast, the GNP indicator is untouched when a person uses knitting material they already had stored to create a lovely gift for a family member or friend.  Those are examples of why Donella Meadows writes:

The GNP is obviously not a measure of progress....
It is indiscriminate.  It lumps together joys and sorrows, triumphs and disasters,
 profundities and trivializes, everything that costs money and nothing that doesn't.

Perhaps during the one-month period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, besides making a shopping list, we might pause to create a mental list of intangibles we are able to give.  One starting place might be to think back upon what things other than purchased products we have been blessed with having been able to give to others.  I would put on my list my having been able to be a teacher about topics related to religion, spirituality, Nature, and science.  (For a decade, this website has served as one avenue for that teaching.)

The reverse side of giving is getting.  During the month near Christmas -- and the other winter festivities of Hannukah and Kwanzaa -- we might also reflect upon the intangibles we receive.  Of course, we are grateful for the love that binds our lives with others.  But are there things we have received that are more specific to our individual identities?  Here again (perhaps because I am now in my 70's) I look to the past.  And I think that one of the greatest gifts my parents and teachers gave me were those values that gave me a habit of looking beneath the surface of things -- an eye for the intangibles, the immeasurables, that are crucial to spirituality.  Those intangibles are there, whether or not we notice them.

In addition to such reflections upon our lives during the weeks near Christmas Day, might we perhaps shift our reading to include something different than our usual routine?  Something that would be enhancing?  And during those weeks, might we turn our attention to the changing aspects of Nature as the year moves into winter?

~ ~ ~ 

Is there something you are reading during the weeks near Christmas that you would like to tell others about?  Have you noticed something in Nature during this period that has invigorated you?

(The quotation by Oscar Wilde is from his 1892 Lady Windermere's Fan,
 as cited in Familiar Quotations, 16th edition, edited by John Bartlett, p. 566 #23.)
(The quotation by Donella H. Meadows is from her book The Global Citizen, © 1991, p. 232.)

A Crocus in the Snow

It is a classic subject for nature photographers:  a vividly purple flower
 in the midst of white snow. Why is that image appealing to us?

Part of its appeal comes from its aesthetic beauty -- so much so that it demonstrates what have long been held to be some of the identifying characteristics of beauty.  One of those is that beauty is created when some features that might otherwise be experienced as being in conflict are instead held together in harmony.  In this case, the intensity of purple contrasts with the absence of color in the snow; yet the two are held in harmony.  The contemporary professor of religion Steven R. Guthrie, explaining this aspect of classical Western thought regarding beauty, writes that, "In Plato's dialogues... harmony in this sense is not uniformity or unanimity but the beauty that emerges from different elements in right relationship.... It is, in Dante's words, 'an order' from 'things disparate.' "

Most people like the image of the crocus in the snow.  That favorable emotional response points to another aspect that the Western philosophical and theological traditions have identified as being a characteristic of beauty.  Namely, that something beautiful creates a resonance within us that is pleasing.  In that regard, Guthrie explains that " [Thomas] Aquinas draws our attention to the immediate impression that beautiful things make upon our senses."

In the case of the crocus in the snow, however, those who find the image beautiful are often responding to more than the aesthetic beauty of purple against white.  A purple blotch on a white background would not elicit the same emotions that the flower does.  What also resonates within us in the case of the crocus, even if unconsciously, is the contrast between the new life of the emerging flower and the surrounding cold snow of winter -- the season in which most plants die back.  This additional form of contrast is also a dimension of the image's beauty that is pleasing to us.  Not only is the tension between purple and white held together, but life and death are held together in a moment of harmony when the crocus emerges out of the snow.  The 18th-century poet Christopher Smart, in his poem praising God, expressed how the crocus stands out from other plants around it.  He wrote:

"The laurels with the winter strive;

The crocus burnishes alive

     Upon the snow-clad earth."

The moment of plant-nativity displayed by the crocus can thus evoke within us that enduring quality of hope that sustains our human existence.  Gandhi once wrote:

"I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying, there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds
 all together, that creates, dissolves, and re-creates.... And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent. For I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.
 Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light."

It is through our human capacity to not only resonate when experiencing aesthetic beauty but also respond to symbols that we can open ourselves to the transcendent dimension of reality.  The crocus in the snow reveals to us more than the survival capability of a specific flower.  It points to the Ultimate Ground of all existence.  And in that Ground are the "flower-bulbs" and "seeds" of all that can be.  There is an Indian saying that:

"All the flowers of all the tomorrows
 are in the seeds of today."

The real challenge can be spotting those "seeds" and nurturing them.  Sometimes we cannot even see them at all.  But even when we cannot perceive them, we can hope, and like Gandhi we can have faith that they are there despite being hidden beneath the snow.

~ ~ ~

(What do you hope for?  Can you see any way you might contribute to that future growth of something good?)

(The Steven R. Guthrie quotation is from his book Creator Spirit:
 The Holy Spirit and the Art of Becoming Human, © 2011. pp. 201-202 & 205.)

(The lines by Christopher Smart are from "A Song to David,"
 taken from Encompassing Nature, ed. Robert M. Torrance, © 1998, p. 1015.)

(The Gandhi quotation is from his Young India, 11-10-28, as quoted in Gleanings from
 the writings of Mahatma Gandhi bearing on God, God-Realization and the Godly way, ed. R. K. Prabhu.)

Friendly Competition by Fahrenheit

The United States is positioned on latitudes that stretch from semitropical climates in the south to winter temperatures in the north that approach those of Russia.  That wide range within a single nation with one main language allows for some friendly competition during winters and summers. When winter extremes hit more northern states, those who live in balmier climates can tweet, email, or phone their northern friends, bragging about relatively comfortable environments.  Of course, the danger is that come next summer, those in the north will get their revenge by communicating long-distance about their refreshingly cool nighttime temperatures while those in the south are baking.  Another way to try to gain advantage in this friendly game is for me to turn my own weather extreme to my advantage by bragging about the hardship I am enduring!

 "Various Meteorological Phenomena" (1856)

Comparing weather notes in some fashion is nothing new.  The 18th-century British lexicographer Samuel Johnson observed:  "When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather."  Our modern means of communication, however, allow us to share simultaneous but dissimilar experiences of weather, all within our single nation.

Behind the extremes of winter and summer lies a larger truth about life on planet Earth.  Namely, that species on this planet have evolved so as to be able to usually live within such extremes.  Even more broadly, some scientists have put forward the "anthropic principle" as a way of pointing to a kind of "fine-tuning" of certain characteristics of the universe that match the conditions necessary for life.  Such as the forces that make possible certain chemical elements in the universe.  The extremes of weather and the extremes of what various species can tolerate are, however, one place we can observe directly a "fit" between life and its environments.

We humans, with our complex cultures, tool-making, and accumulation of knowledge have stretched our natural limits.  We have found ways to dress ourselves for extreme colds, and invented ways to artificially warm or cool our burrows.

We might ask though: Can we also extend ourselves spiritually to encompass the extremes that press in upon our lives?  The friendly game of contrasting temperatures sometimes needs to be set aside.  When the extremes of weather bring injury, or even death, we need to shift to another mode, remembering the religious leader Paul's reminder to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

Thus, the extremes we endure can call us to rise above a concern centered just upon ourselves, recognizing that the element of unfortunate chance can strike any life.  Rising above a narrow self-concern can be something like rising above this planet's surface to see all of it as a whole. The Saudi Arabian astronaut Prince Sulatan Bin Salmon Al-Saud described his experience with fellow astronauts this way:

"The first day or so, we all pointed to our countries.

The third or fourth day,
 we were pointing to our continents.

By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth."

~~~

How do you deal with the shifting seasons psychologically or spiritually?

(The quote by Samuel Johnson [1709-1784] is taken from

 Bloomsbury Treasury of Quotations, ed. John Dainith, © 1994, p. 763.)

(The quote by Paul is from Christianity's New Testament, Romans 12:15 [NRSV].)

(The Prince Al-Saud quote is from Weather: How It Works and Why It Matters by Arthur Upgren, p. 42.)

A Small, Sound Voice on Stillness

Cultural historical memories are fickle:  A few people are remembered; many are forgotten. This holds true for literature as well.  How many people have written poetry?  The number is unimaginable.  And yet, open any anthology of poetry, and you will find poems by fewer than a hundred poets, usually only a few dozen.

Siegfried Sassoon (1917)

One early 20th-century English-speaking poet who has been a victim of this cultural forgetfulness is Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).  His poems are mostly forgotten because he got labeled as being a "war poet" for his poems expressing the horrors of World War I.  But his war poems could not match those of his contemporary Wilfred Owen, and so Sassoon became eclipsed by Owen.  However, only some of Siegfried Sassoon's poems are about war.  Many are spiritual.  Some are also about Nature.  One in particular speaks of winter in a way that is meaningful whether the world is at peace or at war.

The poem begins with the words "December stillness," setting the nearly-still atmosphere of both the poem and the winter day the poet is experiencing.  The next words quickly show that it is more than stillness Sassoon is evoking.  He is also speaking about an invisible depth behind the stillness, a spiritual depth -- one that some readers might want to use the word "God" for, even though Sassoon never employs that word:

"December stillness, teach me through your trees

That loom along the west, one with the land,

The veiled evangel of your mysteries."

At this point, it would be tempting for any poet to begin describing those "trees."  After all, winter evergreens can be majestically beautiful, as can the outlines of bare trees with winter snow in the background.  Instead, Sassoon seizes upon another phenomenon of winter -- that the bareness of trees can better allow us to look up at the sky:

"Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;

And let me learn your secret from the sky,"

Continuing to convey his firsthand, immediate experience, Sassoon has his clear line of sight caught by something seemingly unexpected:

"And let me learn your secret from the sky,

Following a flock of steadfast, journeying birds"

Now, Sassoon's contemplative openness to Nature on this still winter day leads to his becoming more aware of, and being able to express, a yearning within his heart.  The desire he speaks in the poem's final line mirrors something he perceived in the birds:

"Teach me to travel far and bear my loads."

We may all be eventually forgotten.  Nonetheless, may our lives more often touch the depths of our own living by being touched by the depths of Nature.

~~~

Even if winter has only begun where you live, have you noticed any changes in Nature?  Have you noticed any changes in the stirrings of your heart at this time of year?

(Sassoon's poem is from Collected Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, © 1918, 1920.)

(The entire poem can be read at this external link:  "December Stillness.")

Some Light on Diwali and Us

In the U.S., as soon as Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, people's plans turn to what has come to be called "the holiday season."  That label, although bland, is appropriate because some of the most festive celebrations of a number of faith-traditions all fall in December:  Obviously, Christianity's Christmas.  And Judaism's Hanukkah.  Also the less known but beautiful home-ceremonies of Kwanzaa, out of African-American culture.  However, even before the December convergence of those holidays occurs, the Indian-American community has gotten a jump on celebration with the ancient festival of Diwali.  And that celebration can shed some light on those other holidays, as well as upon our human relationship with the natural world.

The name "Diwali" is derived from the Sanskrit phrase "row of lamps."  In India, there are variations depending in which region it is being celebrated, and whether the people celebrating are Hindus, Jains, or Sikhs.  But it is the lighting of small clay oil lamps that has resulted in its sometimes being referred to as "the festival of lights."

It is hard to express to someone who does not live in a city with a significant Indian population how popular Diwali is, but one Diwali gathering in the suburb of one large U.S. city drew thousands of celebrants.  One autumn, I dropped in for a vegetarian buffet at an Indian restaurant, and found myself in a crowd of people buying sweets for Diwali -- a crowd so focused on one task that it resembled Christmas shoppers.

I cannot help but notice that all four of the latter-fall or early-winter festivals I have mentioned involve the lighting of candles or oil lamps:  The four weekly Advent candles before Christmas. The eight daily-lit candles of the Jewish menorah.  The Kwanzaa candles representing different virtues.  And the oil lamps of Diwali.

No matter which way we celebrate "the holiday season," as we call it, and no matter which way we celebrate the multi-layered meanings of symbols about light and darkness, one thing will certainly remain true.  Tomorrow, the sun will rise; and in the Northern Hemisphere in the weeks following the winter solstice, the days will grow longer again.  That phenomenon has occurred for over 4 billion years, which calculates out to 1.46 trillion days.  Moreover, scientists tell us the sun will pull that trick of rising for billions of years still to come.

Although the return of light and the human need for illumination, both physical and spiritual, are the most obvious symbols of our four late-year holidays, I have come to think that there is another component as well: Namely, beauty.  The candles we light don't merely illuminate the room we are in.  (If that was all we needed, we could just turn on the overhead fluorescents.)  The candles we light, especially if in a dimmed or darkened rooms, are like the pinpoints of stars in a black velvet sky. The contrast of light and dark creates a harmony of contrasts we can experience as being beautiful.  Moreover, when we light those holiday candles, just as when we look out into the depths of a dark, starlit sky, we can feel a depth to our lives, and a depth in all of human existence.

~~~

Do you have a particular, special memory of one of these four celebrations?

(The photograph of Diwali decorations is by Subharnab Majumdar

and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)