On BNY Mellon Profiteering From Environmental Disaster

So I recently saw this absolutely horrifying TV ad, one breath-taking in its cheerful cynicism and opportunism.  It involves an investment company (it doesn't matter which one) outlining how global warming's catastrophic effects on Peruvian anchovie populations will in turn set off a horrific chain reaction that will drive up food prices across the globe.  But this ad is no mere environmental alarmist warning!  Oh, if only--no, this ad instead happily explains how this particular investment company uses this data to "identify innovative new investment possibilities" or some other collection of buzzwords staggering in its inhumanity.

Chew on that for a second: this investment company not only frankly admits that global warming will cause terrifying food shortages, but uses that data not to try and avoid such cataclysms, but instead to profit from it!  Note that their vaunted research endowments merely fund marine biologists to study Peruvian anchovies, not restore them (and with notepads underwater, no less!)--oh, they've worded their ad carefully, oh so carefully, covering all their legal bases, as though wording will save them! 

Meanwhile, global rises in food prices will lead to widespread famine, starvation, and civil unrest (as we are already seeing in the Arab world), and all this investment company can think of is how can I profit from this?!  I don't know what to find more galling: their frank indifference to the future suffering of millions if not billions, or their (sadly, probably correct) assumption that a mass television audience won't care, either.

I never thought I'd pine for climate change deniers, but this ad but proves again that honesty is useless if it's not married to some basic human decency.  For the sad truth is that this shameless investment company is completely honest and frank about the obvious and awful effects of global warming, but their ethical response to this data is only to figure out how to exploit it for their own gain.  My goodness, at least climate change deniers implicitly acknowledge through their denial that climate change would be awful for everyone if it were true. 

This ad is the gated-community mindset on a global scale: it's the wealthy's assumptions that they are somehow separate from the world around them, that they are in some manner above and disconnected from the surrounding world community, that they can stand back comfortably and safely from all the mayhem they have both helped create and continue to profit from (if this ad is any indicator).  It's a comforting illusion I suppose, but also a dangerous one. 

3 Nephi 1:9-14 and A Very Merry Wrestle-With-God Christmas

9 Now it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those traditions should be put to death except the sign should come to pass, which had been given by Samuel the prophet.

10 Now it came to pass that when Nephi, the son of Nephi, saw this wickedness of his people, his heart was exceedingly sorrowful.

11 And it came to pass that he went out and bowed himself down upon the earth, and cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people, yea, those who were about to be destroyed because of their faith in the tradition of their fathers.

12 And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord all that day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:

13 Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets.

14 Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world, and to do the will, both of the Father and of the Son—of the Father because of me, and of the Son because of my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign be given.

Why did God force Nephi to wrestle all day in mighty prayer for the very thing that God was willing to give him all along?  I mean, 10,000 miles away, Mary's gotta carry that child the full 9 months to term, and barring her going into labor slightly premature or late, there's really not a lot either she or the Christ child can do to make sure he's born just in time to save from massacre a bunch of diasporic Israelites they know nothing about on the opposite side of the globe.

Clearly Heavenly Father had orchestrated the whole shebang down to the last far-flung detail--inspiring Augustus Caesar to announce the Roman census and tax just in time to ensure the baby is born in Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy, during the same time that religious tensions in Pre-Colombian America are coming to a breaking point, while also ensuring that the Immaculate Conception occurs just in time to resolve said crisis exactly 9 months later, while causing a nebula to either undergo cold fusion millions of years ago or some star to go nova, at just the right moment for its light to become visible from Earth's surface to the naked eye circa AD 1, and doubtless a million billion other variables we can't even comprehend--all to make sure that everything synchronizes across creation at just this right moment.

My point is, in retrospect, Nephi had nothing to worry about.  God could've told Nephi at any single moment to chill out, be of good cheer, don't worry about it, everything'll be fine.  So why did God make Nephi sweat it?

I of course don't know for sure, but my hunch is that God did it precisely to make Nephi wrestle for it!  Because in wrestling with God for assurance at his moment of most dire peril, Nephi grew closer to God than he ever had before.  I suspect that after Christ's birth, that God and Nephi had an understanding, a relationship, that they hadn't had before that day.

By way of further example, I think God wanted to bless Jacob and make him Israel all along--but he also knew Jacob wouldn't have the faith to become Israel till he'd wrestled with the Almighty all night long, so he forced the Patriarch Jacob to wrestle for the very blessing that God himself wanted to give him!  In like manner, God made Nephi son of Nephi wrestle for the blessing that God wanted to him all along, so that they would be closer as well.  God could've given Nephi the answer he wanted right from the start, and thus they would've had no closer relationship than between, say, us and an ATM.  But God wanted him and Nephi to be closer than that.

Remember that Christ came to this Earth to effect an Atonement (a William Tyndale word, meaning quite literally to make At-One, to join together), to reconcile us with God.  So how appropriate, perhaps, that God helped Nephi draw closer to God the very night of Christ's birth. 


My old guitar teacher in Idaho once said that D&C 4:4, "If ye have desires...ye are called" refers not just to missionary work, but to anything we feel desire to do, from learning guitar to our careers to our schooling, or to anything really.  If you have desires to do anything, then God has called you specifically to do it.  But as any athlete or musician can testify, you don't become good at something until you wrestle with it, with your instrument, with your opponent, with your own body, with yourself.

God has also arranged all things to work together for our good, and stands prepared to give us that which you most desperately desire I think, but he still wants us to wrestle for it, because we are his children, and he want us to have a closer relationship with him.  Merry Christmas.

15 And it came to pass that the words which came unto Nephi were fulfilled, according as they had been spoken; for behold, at the going down of the sun there was no darkness; and the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came...

 19 And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was mid-day. And it came to pass that the sun did rise in the morning again, according to its proper order; and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born, because of the sign which had been given.

20 And it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.

21 And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word.

30: The Big Gear Shift

Normally the older folks I know just smile indulgently on youngins like myself who bemoan how old we're feelin'.  Shoot, my own Aunt once called my Dad a "child" cause he was "only" 60.  Age is all just a matter of perspective I guess.

Except with 30, I've realized.  I hit the big 3-0 myself earlier this year, and even now it still feels like a car that's leaking transmission fluid making a gear shift in cold weather--lurching, jolting, heart-attack inducing, and slow to settle into the next stage.

And here's the thing--whenever I tell these aforementioned older folks how I feel like I'm still stuck between gears, I brace myself for them to just sort of snort and chuckle and say something reassuring like "yeah, I remember being that young..."

But then they don't.  To a man, they don't!  Instead, they nod solemnly and say, "Yep, that was a hard age for me, too."  And not even sarcastically.  They've even told me that turning 40, 50, 60, while certainly sobering milestones as well, still aren't as strange-feeling as 30.  Something about hitting 30 just throws you off-kilter.

So take heart, fellow 30-year-olds!  You are not alone.  You really are at the strangest age of all.  30 is the big gear shift.

On Cell-Phones: A Resolution for the Coming New Year

One of my growing pet peeves is when older folks complain about how "kids these days" are always fiddling on their smartphones, becoming anti-social and cutting themselves off from all the beauty of the world around them and etc. 

Look, here's the God's-honest-truth--it's not that kids are always on their phones, it's that they are always on their phones around you.  

Suddenly that re-frames the problem, doesn't it.

In my experience as both a teacher and a student, when kids are interested in what you have to say, then they will put away their phones, naturally, without compulsory means, without having to be asked.  Phones are actually not all that interesting; it's simply that they are more interesting than maybe what you are saying.  It's either stare at you in undisguised contempt at how bored you're making them a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or politely play with their phones instead. 

Therefore: I resolve in this coming New Year to strive to be more interesting than a smartphone.

The Physicality of Native American and Mormon Religious Experience

Last summer, a Navajo student approached me after class to get an absence excused.  She had to run back down to the reservation in Arizona, she explained, for some sort of emergency cleansing ritual for a cousin, of which the entire extended family needed to be present.   The cousin had been haunted by dark dreams of late, but the kicker was when a snake slithered by her cousin one day and whipped her ankle with its tail--a super-bad omen, all the more ominous in its physicality. "In Navajo religion, evil is, like, very literally, physically real," she explained--and hence only a very physical ceremony would cleanse her.

The student herself implied that, having lived most her life in Salt Lake City, she didn't totally buy into these rituals, that this was more of a family-duty sort of thing...but she also implied that she didn't totally disbelieve it, either.

Anyways, I excused the absence, but it remained on my mind, especially when I took a Native American Readings course this Fall semester.  The moment I saw that class listed, I knew I needed to take it--here I am an aspiring Post-Colonialist, looking abroad at Ireland and Latin-America and India et al, but here was regular Colonialism, right here in my own nation! Momaday, Silko, Welch, McNickle, Harjo, Ortiz, Erdrich--these are writers from the Reservations grappling with Colonialism in the present, in real time, in my own backyard, where there's nothing "Post" about it, and it behooves me to pay more attention to that.

But as the class progressed, my interests progressed from the academic to the personal.  My religious faith, you see, is peculiarly interested in Native Americans, for the Book of Mormon claims to provide at least a partial explanation for their origins; specifically, it purports them to be the decedents of diasporic Israelis from the ancient Babylonian invasion, brought to pre-Columbian America by the hand of God--that is, Mormons consider the Native Americans to be children of Prophets.

Hence, the aforementioned physicality of Native American religious experience deeply intrigues me, because of how literally physical Mormonism often is.  For example, we take James 5:14 quite literally: when we go in for healings, we place a small daub of real, literal olive oil on the subject's head before proceeding with the blessing.

We've been mocked for wearing ceremonial undergarments ("magic underwear" is a derogatory term, by the way), as well as for worshipping a literal, anthropomorphic God.  But then, much like Native Americans, having a figurative, abstract, distant God, one that is separate from this physical, tangible world, one that doesn't touch our skin or interact with our senses, bores us and doesn't make sense to us.

More examples: just before Joseph Smith had his first vision of God and Christ "in a pillar of light...above the brightness of the sun," he described being attacked by Satan thusly: "I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being."  For both Joseph Smith and the Navajo, evil is something literal, physical, tangible, real, something that can touch us and harm us physically.  But then, in both traditions, good is also something physical, tangible, real--and hence in Mormonism, God is a literal, physical, exalted man who demonstrates our own potential.

From the poetry of Joy Harjo, I better understand the Native Americans belief in the thin permeability between this world and the next, in the multiplicity of worlds (not just possible worlds, but actual worlds), in the realness of spiritual impressions, in visions and dreams.  All these are also core parts of LDS doctrine that I fear I have not taken seriously enough.

Perhaps most significantly, for both Native Americans and Mormonism, salvation isn't just individual (as in Protestantism), but communal.   It didn't surprise me when that Navajo student told me her entire family needed to be at that cleansing ritual--for we are not saved individually, but with and through our families.  "He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers," reads the only scripture to appear in all four volumes of the LDS canon, "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."  Native American thought is the only other place I've encountered thus far that places such an emphasis on redemption through connection with one's family and ancestors.

For in Native American thought, our ancestors aren't just in our genes or "cultural heritage" or whatever, but literally there.  N. Scott Momady writes, "memory is in the blood," and that quite literally.  I think of how anytime I've displayed a sardonic sense of humor, my Dad has said I sound just like his Dad--a man who passed away while I was still in the womb; or how Victor Villanueva in Bootstraps hears his son who's never lived in his native Puerto Rico nor learned Spanish, call his toes "fingers of my feet"--dedos de pie, obeying the Spanish syntax of his ancestors.  Our ancestors may be more literally with us than we realize.

Simply put, this class in Native American readings has altered my own relationship with my own faith, with my ancestors, with myself, causing me to take more seriously things I hadn't before but probably should.  It's caused me to quit keeping the divine at arm's length, and to see it more, unironically, sincerely, in all that surrounds me.

Thomas Bingley and the Mystery of Santa: The Best Christmas Ever!

(A brief Yuletide yarn I wrote a few years back, one demonstrating how sometimes the melting snow dribbling down your underwear can be the warmest of all.  Merry Christmas etc)

“Brothers! Sisters! Neighborhood friends!” began Thomas Bingley, “I have not called you forth this day to our secret tree house fortress, asking you to brave the cold and the snow, to trifle with words, taking time from your precious Christmas break and hot chocolate and snow men and snowballs—

“I saw you throw that snowball at me!” cried Sally Jean from the back, “Don’t pretend you didn’t! I’m telling, I’m telling! Santa’s gonna leave a lump of coal in your stocking.”

“Sally, please!” said Thomas, “Your comments are more pertinent than you realize! For I have called you all here for an emergency meeting, to discuss recent discoveries of mine concerning this Santa Claus; I call you forth to propose to reveal a claim so shocking, that it threatens the very foundations of Christmas itself!”

A collective gasp filled the room. “Madness! Crazy talk!” shouted Joey Banks, standing up, “We’ve all seen Santa Claus! We’ve all sat on his lap at the mall! What, does this Thomas Bingley claim to have ridden in his sleigh? Has Thomas seen the North Pole? Peeped into his magic bag, perhaps? What more could this raver claim to know?”

“Please, Joey, my friend, I do not make my claims lightly!” said Thomas, raising his hands to quiet the crowd, “But my Mom and Dad long ago taught me that if something’s the truth, then the truth must be told—”

(“—like I’ll tell the truth about you hitting me with that snowball!” whined Sally Jean.)

“—And I have researched all this year long,” continued Thomas, ignoring Sally, “And what I’m about to tell you may shock you, may astonish you, may astound and enrage you! You may call me names, pelt me with snowballs, pour cold snow down my underpants—”

(“I’ll pour cold snow down your underpants, Thomas Bingley!” shouted Sally Jean again.)

“But, I beg of you all,” continued Thomas unabated, “to hold your judgment, until you have heard all I have to say, and the evidences I have brought forth!”

“Very well,” said Joey, sitting back down, “Proceed.”

Diplomatically, stoically, Thomas began: “It was last Christmas—morning, to be exact—when I tripped upon a most puzzling curiosity!  It was while I scooted my new toy fire truck across the living room floor, mind.  The wrapping paper wasn’t even off the floor yet, when there, I noticed it.

“Perhaps if I’d played with the toy airplane, instead—I’d have been looking at the ceiling, instead of the floor, and I’d be spared these obsessions, and lived on ignorantly in childlike bliss, but no! I was scooting around the fire truck, making the ‘whoo-whoo!’ with my mouth—”

(“—Get on with it Bingley!” shouted a voice in the back.)

“—When there I saw it; There, amongst the green wrapping papers for the gift from Santa, and the red wrapping paper for the gift from Mom and Dad, laying next to each other.  And even then, I may have though nothing of it, but that the tags were still attached to the ribbons, both reading ‘To Thomas,’ one reading ‘From Mom and Dad,’ and the other ‘From Santa,’ but—” (Here Thomas pulled two frayed tags out of the shoe box he was carrying) “—they were both written in the exact same hand writing!”

Another gasp filled the room.

“I pass these around for your collective consideration,” said Thomas, handing them to Alice Wilcox in the front. “Notice the same slanted ‘T’ on both, the perfectly round ‘Os,’ the same curved ‘S…’”

“Bingley, what the crap are you talking about?” said Billy Hansen, as they passed into his hands.

(“You said a bad word, I’m telling!” said Sally Jean.)

“Don’t you see how similar they look?” replied Thomas, “I even took a ruler and measured them—they’re exactly the same!”

“Bingley! Hello!” said Billy sarcastically, “Santa’s a grown up! Your Mom and Dad are grown-ups! Obviously this is all just grown up writing!”

“And I was of the same mind as yours,” replied Thomas, “And would have continued to push around my new toy red fire truck, but then I came across this!”

Another gasp filled the room, as Thomas pulled out another tag. “From my Aunt May!” declared Thomas, “And if you pay close attention to the flowing calligraphy of the cursive on said tag, you’ll notice that my Aunt May, who is an adult like my Mom and Dad and possibly even as old as Santa Claus himself, has different hand writing!”

The entire room leaned forward for a better look. Thomas again handed the tag to Alice to pass around the room. (“Thomas keeps giving the tags to Alice first!” yelled Sarah, “He must looove her! Thomas and Alice, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n—”  “Shut your pie hole Sally or I’ll hit you with a snowball, stupid face!” yelled back Billy).

“Wait, just what’s your angle, Bingley?” asked Joey skeptically, “Did you drag us up to your stupid tree fort to brag that your parents have the same hand-writing as Santa Claus?”

“Far from it, my friend,” replied Thomas somberly.

“Wait a minute, I know what you’re getting at, Bingley!” jumped in Billy, “You’re trying to tell us that your parents are Santa Claus, right? Ha! Stupid Bingley! Everyone knows Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, not here on Oak Street! Ha-ha, everyone laugh at stupid Thomas Bingley everyone, he thinks Santa lives on Oak Street!”

The room erupted in peels of laughter, yet Thomas remained standing, erect and quiet. When he failed to hide his face in shame as was requisite in such embarrassing situations, the audience fell quiet once more. When all was as silent as the falling snow outside, Thomas continued:

“Would that you were right, Billy,” continued Thomas, “And if I’d only made a mistaken assumption about Santa’s identity, in a Pepè le Pew-esque case of mistaken understanding, I’d have no reason to call you all here today. But no, my friends, the thought that began to haunt me was not one of questioning Santa’s true identity, but that of his very existence!”

The crowd sat silently, their brows furrowed in confusion. “Wait, Thomas, what are you talking about?” asked Alice.

(“Alice called Bingley by his first name, she must like him!” shouted Sally, “Alice and Thomas sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i—” “Shut your cake hole!” Billy shouted again, “I can’t hear!”)

“Consider!” declared Thomas, now pacing back and forth, “We learned in Mrs. Price’s class—” (“I was in Mrs. Williams class, not Mrs. Price!” shouted Sally.) “—in Mrs. Price’s class last year, we learned that there are nearly 7 billion people on the earth now. How does Santa get to them all?”

“He has a supersonic sled!” sneered Billy, “Duh! They do have supersonic jets, you know! I even saw them on TV.”

“But then how does he carry enough gifts for all of them?”

“He has a magical bag that creates whatever you pull out of it!” chimed in Joey, “We saw that in Ernest Saves Christmas! Besides, he only has to deliver to the kids, not the adults.”

“But we also learned how to use Google Earth in the school computer lab last year!” said Thomas, “Have you ever tried to Google Earth…the North Pole?”

“Duh, you couldn’t!” said Billy, “His workshop is in the dream world! We learned that from Miracle on 34th Street, remember? He-llo!”

“Perhaps,” said Thomas, “But also consider—”

“Per-haps?” came the small voice of Preston, Thomas’ younger brother, “Thomas, you’re not suggesting that…that…”

“Bear with me, just one more minute!” said Thomas, holding his hands up.

“But you seem to be saying…” continued Preston with downcast eyes.

“I do not make these claims lightly, as I’ve said!” said Thomas, “But I must prepare your minds first, or you will never accept for a moment the possibility I am about to suggest!”

“Suggest what, Bingley?” said Billy, “Get on with it!”

“Believe me, I considered all the things you’ve all just told me, countless times over!” continued Thomas, pacing, “And I tried to shake the idea that festered in my head, but I just couldn’t! For awhile I could just ignore it, enjoy my spring and summer breaks. But then came my birthday in October, you were all invited to it—”

They all murmured in assent.

“—And I got another gift from my Mom and Dad, with the exact same hand writing on the tag!” He produced another tag to pass around.

“Bingley, we’ve been over this—” began Joey again.

“The tag tore open afresh my mind like a tag torn from a mattress!” Thomas dramatically waved his arm in the air.

(“That’s illegal!” shouted Sally).

“Desperately, I tried to push it back out of my mind, convinced that though it be far easier for Mom and Dad to eat the cookies and drink the milk themselves, that that had to be surefire physical evidence for his existence, for Mom and Dad would never ever lie to me—”

“Lie?!” asked Alice, disconcerted, “Cookies? Wha—milk? Thomas, what on earth are you talking about?!”

“And then in early November I sat on Santa’s lap and he said ho-ho-ho, and I tugged at his beard and it didn’t come off and it eased my mind, I even got the picture taken with him, at the mall—” He produced the photo, passed it around starting with Alice.

“Yeah, yeah, we all got the same photo, Bingley,” said Billy, “What’s your—”

“Note well the date on it!” shouted Thomas, pointing.

“November 15th, yeah, I was with you that day,” said Joey.

“Well, one week later, we got the Christmas card from Uncle Matt in Springfield, with photos of his kids on Santa’s lap!” He likewise produced the photo.

“Oh, there’s where it went!” noted Preston, “Mom and Dad were wondering where that—”

“Notice the date on it!”

Billy let out a gasp. “It’s the same date!” he whispered.

“The same date!” enunciated Thomas. “Two Santas, two towns, two states apart, yet the same day giving photos!”

“So maybe there’s just some actors in a Santa suit!” remarked Joey, “I’m sure he’s too busy at the North Pole to visit every single mall in—”

“Believe me, my friend, I argued the same things to myself!” continued Thomas, “And I decided that if there was nothing to hide, than there was no harm of me searching, every last bit of the house, just to know…to know for sure…”

“Know for sure, what?” shouted Alice, “Thomas, you’re just not making any sense!”

Thomas gazed at her longingly a moment, then slowly reached into his shoebox, while saying, “One day Mom and Dad were out grocery shopping, and I went searching through the house, and at the top of Mom and Dad’s closet…”

“You’re not supposed to go in there!” shouted Preston.

“Well,” whispered Thomas, “I suppose I might as well show you!”

He whipped out a Polaroid photograph. (“You’re not supposed to have the camera!” said Preston.) The crowd leaned forward.

“Behold!” declared Thomas, “Presents! Not yet under the tree! And if you peer close enough, you’ll see one of them tagged ‘To: Thomas, from…Santa Claus!”

Abruptly Joey stood up, pointing an accusatory finger at Thomas. “This proves nothing, Bingley!” Joey shouted, “Maybe Santa FedEx’d them down early to save time! Maybe Santa delivered them early, if your parents promised not to give them early! Who are we to question the workings of Santa Claus, a man who lives at the top of the world? Maybe your parents knew you’d been such a bad boy they bought you presents themselves, and marked them from Santa, to save you the embarrassment! You always were a trouble-maker, Thomas Bingley! You’re probably right at the top of his naughty list! Indeed, how do we know you didn’t plant those presents yourself! Indeed, how—”

“The senses can indeed be fooled!” shouted Thomas, “The ventriloquist and the magician who did the school assembly last week taught us that! And certainly I doubted mine own eyes when I saw those presents on the top shelf! I considered that perhaps so much had this obsession burned in my brain that perchance it had warped my senses! And even when the Polaroid printed I believed it not! But the tags, the photos, the coincidences—it’s all too much, my friends and neighbors!”

(“I’m not your friend!” shouted Sally Jean.  “He didn’t say you were, moron!” shouted back Billy).

“But you’re right, Joey!” continued Thomas, “This all proves precisely nothing! Anything and everything you’ve suggested so far could plausibly negate my own theories! But, my friend, I have to know for certain, or I can never rest on Christmas Eve! Hence, I have devised a sure fire fool proof test, an experiment, whereby I can confirm, once and for all, either one way or the other, the existence of Santa Claus!”

“You’re playing with fire, Bingley!” shouted Joey, “You’re playing with fire! Santa gives to whom he wants! He alone decides! Beware, my friend, your very Christmas gifts be on the line!”

“I would be willing to wage even my very Christmas gifts to know the truth!” shouted back Thomas. Joey faltered backwards in shock; the audience gasped, wide-eyed at this blasphemy.

“Behold!” shouted Thomas, pulling an envelope from his shoe box, “I have mailed to the North Pole a second letter to Santa Claus!”

“A second?!” said Preston, “Why, he must be mad…”

“Identical to the first!” continued Thomas, “Save that this one has one extra item on it, revealed to neither Mom, Dad, nor the mall Santa! Only Santa, if he exists, and myself, know what this extra item be! If indeed Santa exists, then said item shall appear miraculously appear beneath the tree Christmas morning, as all of Santa’s presents do, and Santa Claus’s existence will be confirmed once and for all!”

“Thomas Bingley, would you listen to yourself?” said Alice, standing indignantly, “Doubting Santa’s existence? Testing Santa Claus? You’re like all those doubters all the Christmas movies warned us about! Where does it end, huh, Thomas Bingley? What else about Christmas will you doubt? Is there no caroling either, Thomas? Are there no gingerbread houses, Thomas, no candy canes, no lights, no trees, no snow outside, no sledding? Will you doubt the cookies half eaten, the milk half drunken? Will you begin to doubt your very senses, Thomas? Is there no hot chocolate, no nativity scenes? Is there no Christ child now then, Thomas? No angels appearing to the Shepherds? Is the Bible false Thomas? Is there no God now, Thomas, will you doubt the very existence of God?!”

“Enough of this heresy!” shouted Billy, rising to his feet, pulling at his hair, “Away with this Bingley! Pelt him with snowballs, shove ice and snow down his underpants!”

“UN-DER-PANTS! UN-DER-PANTS!” began the chant of the crowd.

“Hold off till Christmas morn!” pleaded Thomas, “Christmas morn, we shall see the truth! The truth, I say! Then, if I be proven wrong, you may ice mine undies to your hearts’ content!”

This placated the mob somewhat. “I hope, for your sake, Bingley, that it’s worth it,” said Joey, as they all quietly exited the tree fort, murmuring. None would look Thomas in the eye, not even Alice, though Sally stuck her tongue at him. Thomas stayed behind, to gather his tags and photos.
___
Christmas morning, Thomas Bingley moved quickly, methodically, quietly, through his gifts, tearing off the wrapping paper with a tenacity that belied his cold desperation. Each new box from Santa, either to him and his siblings, indeed matched the Polaroid he’d taken, for he’d stayed up studying it the night before till he passed out from sheer exhaustion. And indeed each box contained some gift that either he or his siblings had previously enumerated in his first Christmas gift.

It was with a mixture of elation and despair that Christmas morning that he opened his boxes, for any other Christmas he’d have been overjoyed to receive all the gifts on his list; but each new gift only confirmed his darkest suspicions. Deep down he’d hoped he was wrong, terribly wrong, that all of these boxes would be filled with only coal to punish his insolence (besides, he could at least cover those in snow and throw ‘em at Sally Jean). But no, he got exactly everything he asked for, which was the worst thing in the world for him.

Surrounded by all his new toys, Thomas Bingley sat in the corner, empty, despondent. While his younger siblings laughed in glee, he only chuckled with the despairing cackle of a man proven terribly right. He was a broken boy. He heaved a dejected sigh.

Yet, as he watched his younger siblings laugh in glee midst the flying wrapping paper, he considered that even if Santa was maybe not real in person, he was at least real in their hearts. “I must look at the bright side,” Thomas mused philosophically, “The presents are real, their happiness is real, and Mom and Dad’s love is real…maybe that’s all that matters, really, in the end…”

“Well, wait a sec there, son!” Dad suddenly boomed, “If mine eyes don’t deceive me, and I believe they don’t, methinks I spy just one extra Christmas gift Santa’s left for you, one that wasn’t on your list!”

“Huh—what?” Thomas’ eyes widened.

Opening up the closet door, Thomas’ Dad revealed a bike! And not just any bike, a 12’’ blue-and-silver Huffy Pro Thunder with training wheels and a bucket and streamers on the handle bars—just like the one he described in the second letter!

And sitting on the seat, a tag, reading simply, “To: Thomas. From…

“Santa Claus!”

“I knew it, I knew it!” said Preston, happily.

“I…I don’t believe…it…” soothed Thomas Bingley, as he slowly approached the bike like it was a sacred altar.
“What, my son, don’t you believe the evidence before your very eyes?” asked Thomas’ Dad jovially.

Later that morning, true to his word, Thomas Bingley allowed ice and snow to be shoved down his underpants by the neighborhood kids. But though the slush was freezing as it dribbled down his leg, his heart had never been warmer. It was the best Christmas ever!
THE END

Sufjan Stevens' Silver & Gold: This Christmas, Love Will Tear Us Apart Again!

Last year I set out on a quest to find Christmas music I don't hate, and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

I sought music that at once captured that seasonal sense of wonder and awe as only children seem to be able to experience anymore, while also critiquing the creeping mass of consumerism and self-righteousness that ruined it all in the first place.  For I'd grown weary of Bing Crosby and Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas covers; and my soul was oppressed by the likes of "The Forgotten Carols", Mannheim Steamroller, cheap supermarket Swing covers of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", a capella "Little Drummer Boys", and all their ilk. No more, said I!  I was on a mission to redeem the season.

As such, I started with the counter-culture standards: John Lennon's anthemic "Happy X-mas (War is Over)", The Kinks' incendiary "Father Christmas", The Who's tongue-in-cheek "Christmas" (from Tommy).  (By contrast, Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" almost cancels out the White album).  I also collected Holiday EPs by Low and Joshua James, two artists who are as eager to explore the season's malaise as its euphoria--often at the same time.

Thus far, I'd only collected maybe an hour's worth of Christmas music I didn't hate.  Things were looking grim.  But then a true Christmas miracle happened:

I discovered Sufjan Stevens.

To say that Indie-darling Sufjan Stevens is obsessed with Christmas is to say the Pope is kinda Catholic; over the course of the millennium's first decade, Sufjan released not one, but ten separate Christmas EPs, then collected them all into not one, but two box-sets: 2006's Songs for Christmas and 2012's Silver and Gold (hey, just in time for my Christmas quest!  Coincidence?).  The ever-prolific Sufjan has released near as much Christmas music as he has "regular" music--in fact, I dare say that his "regular" releases are the sideshow, that in fact his true M.O., his raison d'etre, his calling, that for which he'll be best remembered (well, besides "Chicago"), is his music for Christmas, in all of its contradictions and messiness and agony and ecstasy.

And here I thought my relationship with Christmas was fraught!

Of the two box-sets, Songs for Christmas has been out longer, and thus has the bigger reputation.  His song "Hey Guys!  It's Christmas Time!" is now considered a classic in certain Indie quarters, and rightfully so.  But for my money, Silver and Gold is his masterpiece--and I don't say use that word lightly. 

Examples: whereas the "Silent Night" that kicks off Songs for Christmas is just a quick, calming, 40-second acoustic ditty, the "Silent Night" that begins Silver and Gold is this intense and quivering rendition with layered vocals, shimmering piano, and anxious guitar.  He has grown more confident in his song-writing powers.  The message is clear: Sufjan Stevens isn't just going to sing about Christmas anymore, or even for Christmas, no--he's now going to wrestle with Christmas at last and make it his own.

Another stark contrast: the "Joy to the World" on Songs for Christmas is a charming, but ultimately safe and generic acoustic number such as any Indie singer might churn out by December; but the "Joy to the World" on Silver and Gold transforms into this wild electronica experiment at 1:48, and even mashes in his own "Impossible Soul" chorus from The Age of Adz.  Again, on Silver and Gold, Sufjan no longer lets Christmas just happen to him, but makes Christmas his.

More examples: while "It's Christmas! Let's be Glad!" on Songs for Christmas plaintively pleads for Christmas to cheer him up for once, "Carol of St. Benjamin the Bearded One" on Silver and Gold takes Christmas by the throat.  Sufjan here uses Christmas to reflect on how "the things you want in life/you have to really need."  That is, on Silver and Gold, Sufjan uses Christmas not for diversion but to consider the terrible questions; Christmas for Sufjan isn't escapism anymore, but confrontation.

In that same vein, while most the tracks on Songs for Christmas are just a much needed breather from supermarket radio, "Barcarola (You Must Be a Christmas Tree)" by contrast is a bona fide epic.  It is a slow-burning build-up that uses the inevitable loss of the yearly Yuletide as a sublime meditation on the ephemerality of existence.  It isn't just one of Sufjan's best Christmas songs, but one of his best songs period.  It was at this point on Silver and Gold that I realized I'd stumbled onto something special.

Further highlights: the freewheeling, ecstatic "Christmas Woman" and slightly-unhinged "I Am Santa's Helper"; the extra lyrics interspersed into "Angels We Have Heard on High" ("Is it power and wealth you're after?" "The counting and commotion," "Where dreams become your greatest danger...") that I rank among the hymn's most inspired versions; the techno-turns of "Good King Wenceslas" (which segues into Prince's "Alphabet Street," of all things); his brooding, minor-chord rendition of "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"; his seemingly-straightforward "We Need A Little Christmas" that really foregrounds the song's inherent desperate lyrics: "Because I've grown a little meaner/grown a little colder/grown a little sadder/grown a little older..."

These selections can only give a scattered sampling of this dazzling boxset.  Really, I could write a dissertation on this album.  Contrasted against the dull uniformity of most easy-cash-in Christmas collections, Silver and Gold is a staggering roller-coaster of diversity and daring that saves the best for last: Sufjan caps off this tour de force years-in-the-making with a masterstroke that shouldn't work at all, but totally does, "Christmas Unicorn"

This song, by all rights, should just be campy, ridiculous, bloated, "so-bad-its-good," so-twee-it's-insufferable, etc; but that magnificent scoundrel Sufjan Stevens not only makes this song work, but transcend.  Sufjan's Christmas Unicorn is "a symbol for original sin," "a pagan heresy," "a tragical Catholic shrine," "a mythical mess," "a construct of your mind," "hysterically American," "a frantic shopper and a brave pill popper," and "I know you're just like me."  It doesn't take an English major to realize that Sufjan isn't describing a Christmas unicorn at all, but just Christmas itself--which in turn describes us.  The Unicorn is the fun-house mirror that distorts to reveal, and doesn't even have to distort that much.

"But it's alright," he still sings repeatedly, "I love you."  Because for everything that's absolutely wrong with Christmas--and for everything that Christmas reveals is wrong with us--our materialism, shallowness, selfishness, short-sightedness, hypocrisy, greed, etc--Sufjan still loves Christmas, warts and all, and that includes us.  God in all His infinite mercy could be singing "Christmas Unicorn": for He sent His Son that first Christmas specifically because He knew we are all terrible, awful, hypocritical, a bunch of unrepentant rapscallions--but it's alright, He loves us anyways.  Sufjan thoroughly understands the true meaning of Christmas, and all the awful implications that that entails.

And then for his coup de grace, Sufjan Stevens overlaps the extended chorus line of "Find the Christmas Unicorn" with the chorus from Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again."  This is a stroke of genius: for the love that brings us together will also tear us apart; the Christmas that enlivens us will also break our hearts; what we love most will most hurt us; what's born must die just as what dies must resurrect, and the great secret is that these are all causes not for mourning, but celebration!  Sufjan Stevens' great revelation here is that the purest, most perfect expression of the Spirit of Christmas was in a Joy Division song all along.

Such has been the transformative effect of Silver and Gold on me that my relationship with other Christmas music has even been redeemed.  I can now listen to Bing Crosby un-ironically again (albeit still in limited doses); the Mormon Tabernacle Choir blows my mind once more.  Low and Joshua James and John Lennon and The Kinks and Songs for Christmas are all part of my yearly Yuletide tradition now.  But it's Silver and Gold that I've been waiting for the most all year long.  Last year when I set out on a quest to find Christmas music I don't hate, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams thanks to Sufjan.  I hope you've clicked on the links and enjoyed all these wonderful tracks.  This Christmas, Love will tear us apart again--but it's alright, I love you.