Minilogue - December 2005

The Spirit of Santa Claus

By the Rev. Bruce Johnson

Twenty centuries ago, in a famous passage from his letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote of putting away childish things as a sign of his spiritual maturity.

I prefer the perspective of the modern French philosopher, Paul Ricouer, who wrote of the need to develop what he called a second naivete--the mature recovery of a kind of innocence that has passed through narrow and cynical view of the world.

This holiday season seems designed to invite us all toward such a second naivete. The process is well described by the British essayist, G.K. Chesterton:

What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way. As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good--far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. Of course, most people who talk about these things get into a state of some mental confusion by attaching tremendous importance to the name of the entity. We called him Santa Claus, because everyone called him Santa Claus; but the name of a god is a mere human label. His real name may have been Williams. It may have been the Archangel Uriel. What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea.

Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void. Once I thanked Santa for a few dolls and crackers, now, I thank him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.

Chesterton(s reflections describe my own (theology) pretty well. The sense of deep gratitude, not for this or that particular gift, but for the entirely gratuitous nature of life itself--that is a mature religious attitude, appropriate for any holiday.

My very best wishes to you for the holiday season. May you all enjoy it and share it with others in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.