Image via WikipediaBut it's also the season when Americans suffer the highest incidence of depression and suicide.
But it's no laughing matter that, during the holidays, the depression and suicide rates are highest.
Why? REALISM! As you know, you can't solve a problem you don't HAVE! Apparently, at Christmas more than any other time of year, people actually FACE how lonely and empty their lives are.
Since this IS the hitting-bottom time of year, it MUST be the time to turn around, right? And that fits in nicely with New Years resolutions, doesn't it? So, rather than saying, "Tis the season to be jolly," let's say, "Tis the season to hit bottom and turn around.
Some say it is.
The world would be a much better place if more of us had what would be a
true Christmas spirit year round -- if we actually put our love relationships first; if we actually nurtured generosity in all our thoughts and deeds; if we actually allowed our real spiritual values to warm our hearts and minds; if we actually treated everyone with sincere, unselfish good will.
Nowhere is this misunderstanding more evident than at Christmas.
"Love" means taking a trip, buying cute little stockings and stocking stuffers and piles of presents, singing Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman, giving huggy-wuggies, and finally, going home, relieved to
not be doing all that anymore!
If we "celebrated" like that all year long, would this be a better world? NOT! Fact is, we express tacky love all year long -- although, thankfully, in a slightly diluted form.
The country with have the highest rates worldwide for divorce, depression, and drug use.
A materialistically insane society where consumerism grossly exceeds (personally or nationally)
sustainable levels.
All to keep our prices low, you know.
But when the process becomes mandatory, ritualized, obsessive, and hurried, as it has in America at Christmas, it's more harmful than good.
We buy costly, "love"-symbolizing gifts.
After the big day comes and goes, behind every home there's a garbage can of plastic peanuts, and bows, and ribbons, and styrofoam.
These by-products of our Christmas "love exchange" will create massive pollution, and kill all kinds of wildlife in the streams in the area.
But we don't know, and we don't care, about that.
That's what our Christmas-time definition of "love" creates -- the actual
result, if you just look into it.
Family values and holiday magic
Blood is thicker than water, and it coagulates around Christmas.
Love does run deep in family bloodlines.
It can and does bring out the best in people.
Now, can we look at the family at a typical holiday reunion? Can we look into the individual people, and see their actual relationships with one another? For real: what's going on? What is it all about? And what significance does it have to share all this annual "love" in these annual ways?
Presumably holiday reunions console people -- at least, if things go well.
built up during the year.
Now what? Let's follow the people through.
Obviously, if a person is consoled, they're less likely to make big changes; people make big changes only when they absolutely have to.
That's the way they'll interpret it, at least, because they'll think, "Things are okay with my life.
Hitting bottom
What if the opposite thing had happened? What if they decided to have Christmas and nobody came? Oh dear -- that's the most disastrous thing that could possibly happen on Christmas! Enough to put anyone into deep dark crisis.
First, the poor lonely soul in crisis spends Christmas Day alone, realizing that they have nothing, and crying in the middle of the living room rug while the dying Christmas tree in the corner silently watches.
It came upon a midnight clear: the turnaround So they get up.
They decide to make themselves useful.
Maybe they do something for the poor.
They do something that's really different for them, and it really is constructive.
It isn't just consoling.
It hit them so hard, they had to figure out what the hell to do, now that their entire life, as they knew it, had blown up in their face.
It's the first Christmas that actually improved their chances for a better life -- all because, this time, they failed to avoid the crisis.
One time, they didn't turn on the TV.
One time, they failed to do all that, so they hit the floor.
They hit bottom.
Those other (bad) Christmases
Too bad about all those Christmases, those birthdays, those Valentine's Days, those Mother's Days, those Father's Days, those National Secretary's Days, those Fourth of Julys, those desserts, those dinners out -- all those nice little occasions that kept them from hitting bottom in the past.
All the "good things in life" turned out to be their undoing.
Woulda shoulda coulda.
What type of person will you be at Christmas this year?
At Christmas, most people fall into one of two categories:
The perky reveler.
They could be the Christmas Pollyanna, exchanging trinkets with their coworkers.
But both types are going to pig out, and probably get tipsy insofar as possible.
The depressed reveler.
They add to the statistics for suicide and depression that peak every year at Christmas.
The problem with the rest of the pack, the inwardly troubled ones who have an outwardly nice Christmas, is they refuse to get real.
But consolation is not the answer.
Some little stocking stuffers.
Some little colored lights.
(Wait! Before I get slammed with hate mail from those who appreciate the finer qualities of alcoholic beverages, let me say this for the record: "Booze is okay with me -- as long as it doesn't ruin lives.
The kindest, most compassionate Christmas wish
Let's face it:
most people are part of that demographic that can honestly say, "I don't turn around unless I hit bottom.
That's why the kindest, most compassionate Christmas wish is that people
will hit bottom on Christmas -- so that they have their chance to turn around.
Just hope their response to hitting bottom is more constructive than to simply get depressed, or commit suicide.
So therefore, this is my Christmas wish to everybody who needs to turn around: that you should hit bottom this Christmas -- rock bottom!
My Four Christmas Wishes
My Wish for Happy Relationships
This holiday season, as the snow covers the dark hard frozen dirt with a pure white, soft, and warm-looking blanket, and as blood relations across the land browbeat and guilt trip one another into coming home for a loving holiday, I wish that: relatives invited for Christmas don't come if they don't
really want to.
If they are, that is people do something about their emotional hollow leg -- and
really love, in the context of genuinely spiritually supportive relationships.
Instead, may we try to satisfy the real needs of the human heart in all our relationships.
And very close to home, prosperity may depend, in part, on how much Christmas debt we create for ourselves and our families.
Our voracious buying habits impoverish and enslave thousands of Third World workers -- making United States a villain on the world stage.
The Spirit of Giving can give the wrong impression if the recipients of our packages get the impression that the crap we buy them is really important.
May we not impoverish ourselves, and enslave others, trying to feel richer than we are.
May we love people, truly, instead.
Longfellow
This holiday season, as our President sits in the White House scheming about sending more soldiers over to kill and be killed in Iraq, and we stew about our latest argument with a friend, and wonder how to come out on top in the power struggles at work and at home, let's get
responsible in our prayers for peace:
Dear Lord, this holiday season, when it comes to peace on earth, may we realize it's not very peaceful to go out and kill innocent people by the thousands in foreign countries.
My Wish for Joyful Holiday Celebration
Since it is a well-known fact that Christmas is the worst time of year for recovering alcoholics, and drug abusers, and DUIs, I wish, this Christmas, that .
Uncle Louie, as usual, drunk as he can get on holiday punch, can't ever get drunk enough to cover up his pain.
We don't just pity, or empathize with, or collude with our troubled friends, but we actively give them love and support in the forms they need.
Let's do that.
Let's create more joy than THAT.
There's a cure for dysfunctional, alienated living.
It's all the same cure:
Give up ego and selfishness, and love.
Happiest Story
Two days ago, my friend's father underwent cancer surgery.
But .
I think I'll just take care of Rose [his wife], you, and Marsha [his other daughter].
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