At times I have a rather archaic, puritanical view of Christmas and its excesses. I never have a tree, I have quit buying Christmas presents for my family ... Goldman Sachs plundered my 401K, you see. As well, my Lutheran heritage has a touch of ascetic Pietism in it which would reduce Christmas to a dark, minimalist day of solemn contemplation and I am even occasionally given to a strange fascination with the Tibetan rite of Chöd.
Nevertheless, I am also intrigued by the paradoxical symbolism of the Christmas tree. It is claimed that Luther, my sometimes hero:
Legend has it that Martin Luther began the tradition of decorating trees to celebrate Christmas. One crisp Christmas Eve, about the year 1500, he was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lighted in honor of Christ's birth.
Another unstated aspect of the legend is that Luther was reversing the ancient Teutonic tendency of sacrificing small children to trees by sacrificing a tree to small children and I am charmed by that consideration.
Small children and Christmas trees. And the eternal joy of Christmas in the eyes of a child.
I am sentimentally sappy about it all.
But, this Christmas I am angry. If I had a tree I would decorate it with twenty tiny black coffins to mark the events of December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. Or, perhaps this Christmas I would decorate it with the usual ornaments besmirched with the sacrificial blood of tiny children.
Twenty little children who will not be present for Christmas 2012. And they will be absent from every Christmas hereafter.
Sacrificed not to a tree as of old, but to guns. in this particular case, "two powerful handguns ... and a semiautomatic rifle that is similar to weapons used by troops in Afghanistan."
Nancy Lanza loved guns .... Investigators have linked Ms. Lanza to five weapons: two powerful handguns, two traditional hunting rifles and a semiautomatic rifle that is similar to weapons used by troops in Afghanistan. Her son took the two handguns and the semiautomatic rifle to the school. Law enforcement officials said they believed the guns were acquired legally and were registered.
Mary Lanza loved guns. I cannot understand in any way why she loved guns. Mary Lanza loved guns and in her love she signed her own death certificate.
And the death certificates of twenty tiny children and eight adult women who were trying to protect them.
I do not like guns. I could never love a gun. And I no longer have any tolerance with those who choose to misinterpret the Second Amendment so as to focus only on the two last phrase:
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Those two phrases are going to be discussed endlessly and tediously until every last shred of their true meaning is revealed and I will not be silenced in so doing by the NRA and those who choose to misinterpret the Second Amendment.
I might also add that I think Antonin Scalia is an asshole and I find his statement, " the Second Amendment 'obviously' doesn't apply to weapons that can't be hand-carried..." to be utterly fatuous.