If I could have any Christmas wish fulfilled, it would be to wake up to a world fresh and new, like a field of new-fallen snow that lay unbroken by any footprint or thaw. It is a dream, of course, and Christmas wishes are fairy stories told to children to shield them from a world that doesn’t believe in freshness, in newness, in unbroken dreams.
If I could have any Christmas wish fulfilled, it would be to not see the usual Christmas at war stories, of forced gaity mixed with jingoistic patriotism and earnest militarism, stories telling us that our “boys” are getting little pieces of home while they fight and kill in faraway lands for dishonest, warmongering politicians.
If I could have any Christmas wish fulfilled, I would love to wake up to a media where more voices, more perspectives would be heard, especially from the left. There is little or no presentation of ideas that aren’t coming from the perspective of American exceptionalism, from a position where we look at our history, good and bad, with clear eyes and honest hearts. We, a supposed Christian people who believe in “progress” and second chances, increasingly act in hateful and unjust ways toward people who don’t “belong” here, spending enormous sums to lock many people up while refusing to help our own citizens left bereft and homeless.
If I could have any Christmas wish fulfilled, I’d wake to a country that believes in charity and cooperation and openness, unlike the country I live in now, where one stumble in life, one illness or mistake or arrest or layoff can result in dissolution and hopelessness. It’s not enough for charity and help to be band-aids doled out by the rich and famous to polish their public images and to help us all to feel better about the harsh dog-eat-dog battle to the death that we actually live in, our winner-take-all bacchanal for the haves with scraps for the have-nots. There is an old saw that charity begins at home, yet we don’t or won’t express our belief in this by actually ACTING on it, through our shared public institutions. We don’t believe in public institutions anymore, only greed and separation, a system that creates more need, that fosters more hopelessness, that actually manufactures death and disease, all in the mistaken belief that there is no other way to be.
If I could have any Christmas wish fulfilled, it would be for us to cooperate and work together to find a way to foster peace, to nurture openness, to water the roots of cooperation. I would wish for a world where Christmas wishes weren’t so badly needed, where these quiet whispers of hope weren’t so painfully unfulfilled.
