The Day After Christmas

When I was growing up in 1950s New England, the day after Christmas was a recovery day. Kids played with toys that weren’t broken yet. If there was snow, boys went outside for sledding, and snowfort snowball fights. If it was cold and not much recent snow we went to the swamp or the Rez for pick-up hockey. Girls went to the Rez to try out pirouettes on those white figure skates with the pom-pom laces.

Parents cleaned up any trash left from the chaos of the day before, ate leftovers, and generally walked around shaking their heads and staring blankly, while muttering, “next year. . . “

When I moved to London, I heard the day called “Boxing Day.” When I inquired, I was told, “Well not so much anymore, but in days past, it was the servants’ Christmas. You see they had to work on the holiday itself, so on Boxing Day, they had the day off. The household delivered a box with presents to the servants’ houses and they had Christmas.”

Some said, ”It was the day you boxed up those clothes and other things that had been replaced by this year’s presents and took them to the church for the poor,” (sort of like “Giving Tuesday”).

Others of my 1979 London Business School classmates described it, as the day “when one used to take presents to tradespeople and shopkeepers.” The  implication from all these descriptions was it was a traditional day of giving to others less fortunate, but “less practiced now than it used to be.”

St. Stephen’s Day

Helen O’Sullivan, who lived in the Council flats behind us up near Gladstone Park, told us, “Well, I don’t know nothin’ about that Boxin’ Day stuff. It’s St. Stephen’s Day, doncha know?’

She went on to tell us that St. Stephen was the “very first Christian martyr. It was soon after Jesus died and Stephen was a deacon assigned to hand out food to the widows. Well some didn’t like who was gettin’ what food, and the like, and Stephen, he jest give ‘em what for. There’s a whole speech in the book of Acts in the Bible that the nuns made us memorize when we was kids – ‘T’was a LONG speech – ‘bout how people didn’t treat their prophets right including Jesus who was now dead on the cross. Well – those folks didn’t much like his mouth so they took him out and stoned him t’death.  And that’s how he become the first Christian martyr. The nuns said it was a lesson about speakin’ up and speakin’ the truth, but honestly, us kids thought  – that didn’t work out too well for Stephen.”

This was the first I heard about St. Stephen’s Day, which is a big holiday in Ireland and Wales and a lot of other countries. Advent, the time before Christmas (December 3rd -24th) is said to bring “God to Man.” The Twelve days of Christmas, of which The Feast of St. Stephen, is the first day, “brings Man to God.”

I only know this stuff through Google searches today; I wasn’t raised with it, but the Twelve Days go all the way to January 6^th, Epiphany, the day Casper (Gaspar), Balthazar, and Melchior, arrived to worship Jesus in the manger of his birth. The Magi, these three kings or wisemen, brought gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh), and I know there is a whole symbolism about each of the gifts and the kings, but it’s tough to get into someone else’s mythology. The only thing the “Gift of the Magi” brings up for me is the wonderful Guy De Maupassant short story about the poor husband who sells his watch to buy beautiful combs for his wife’s lovely hair. Spoiler alert: She cuts and sells her hair to buy him a watch chain. Pure love.

The Divorced Father’s Christmas

I separated from my first wife when my kids were little. I moved a block away in the same neighborhood so on Christmas Kirsten and I subjected our children to Christmas morning at her house, Christmas afternoon at mine, and then back to her house for Christmas dinner. In retrospect this made Christmas day fraught with an unnecessary “hurry up” schedule for the kids and not insignificant parental conflict.

Most of my divorced male friends celebrate with their kids on December 26^th. There is still the kid-indulgence-impact of two Christmases, and the parental conflict about pick up and drop off times, but at least the schedule is less compressed. Perhaps because of that grandparents can participate in one of the two Christmas extravaganzas.

My wife Billie went through this with her children too, with similar angst. All our kids are grown, and have children of their own now. They seem reasonably well-adjusted, despite what was done to them over the holidays. Of course, we don’t sit in their therapists’ chairs and our children were raised to be polite, so what do we know?

Another Day Forward

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have reached the age where I have accepted my mistakes, and try to look forward even when I ruminate on the past. I am grateful for the Christmas gathering of family and friends and am looking forward to the New Year.

I wish for all my readers this same attitude, which, if I am really honest I don’t maintain every day, despite good intentions. The day after Christmas is another day – not just another day, but a blessing.

Perhaps we can carry forward some of the Joy and Peace spirit into the New Year, listen a little more, judge a little less, donate some clothes or foods, or money to those less fortunate than ourselves  – in the Boxing Day Spirit?

Happy New Year!

 House of Cards

We send holiday cards. My list includes people I’m only in contact with once a year so I usually include a little handwritten note with some news. Not always; I sometimes run out of steam. So I’ve learned to start at the “A’s one year and the ‘Z’s the next so people at least get a note every other year. I never written the typed holiday epistle with all the events for the entire family for the year like my late sister used to do. I used to read her holiday letter between Christmas and New Year (or some years mid-January) out of guilt. I just don’t believe that my life is that interesting.

Our cards often wish joy and peace to the recipient. Some cards mention Christmas for those I know celebrate the Christian holiday. I don’t believe there is a “war on Christmas” or anything so silly, but if I know you have a decorated fir tree in your living room, you might get a picture of one on your card.  The others say “holiday” or “the season” for those I know celebrate Hanukkah, or the Solstice, or those who I just don’t know what or even if they celebrate.

We also like getting cards. The card pictured above, sent to me by the mother of my children and her husband, is the hands-down winner in the holiday card derby this year. OK, there isn’t really a derby, but my wife and I often look at the cards and comment when they come in. “That’s pretty.” “Nice to hear from them.” Some cards actually move us and this card from Kirsten and Ken was one of those.

A Needed Message

“Help.” “Peace” “Forget our differences” It doesn’t matter what you celebrate at this time of year, or if you don’t really celebrate anything, but do reflect on the year past and envision the coming year. That we might be a little kinder, help our fellow humans a little more, and, at a minimum, stop maiming and killing quite so many of us, over lines on a map, or ancient hurt-memories or unshared ideology, well, those hopes resonate.

This time of the year, December,  the Winter Solstice, is the time in the Northern Hemisphere when the sun is furthest from us, so we have many of the world’s religions “bringing in the Light.” In the Southern Hemisphere this is the Summer Solstice, the longest day, but many displaced Northerners still celebrate the Light.

I guess Light ain’t a bad thing at any time of solar rotation. Light, is belief in something larger than ourselves, sun, other stars, the blessed diverse ecosystem we’re a part of when we tread upon the Earth, or Divine Spirit encouraging us to see the Light and do what is Right..

Light is the Golden Rule. No, I don’t mean “whoever has the gold, rules;” I mean the “do unto others as you’d have others do unto you,” or as my friend, Rob, somewhat cynically called it, the “be nice to each other concept.”

The “be nice to each other concept” is found in many religions:

• “ You shall love your neighbor as yourself” – Christian, Gospel of Matthew
• “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man” Judaism, Talmud Shabbat
• “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others that which you wish for yourself.” Islam, The Prophet Mohammed Hadith
• “This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.” Hinduism, Mahabharata
• “…a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” Buddhism, Samyutta Nikaya
• “One should treat all beings as he himself would be treated.” Jainism, Agamas Sutrakritanga
• “No one is my enemy, none a stranger and everyone is my friend.” Sikhism, Guru Arjan Dev
• “Do not do to others what you would not like yourself.” Confucianism, Analects
• “The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful.” Taoism, Tao Teh Ching
• “The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form” Shintoism, Shinto
• “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Baha’i, Udana-Varga
• “Do not do to others what is harmful for yourself” Zoroastrianism, Shayast-na-Shayast 
• “Ape shall not kill ape” Caesar, Planet of the Apes

The script of the movie “Planet of the Apes” mocks us. The “Be Nice to Each Other” concept is human-centric in many of the world’s religions.  As might be expected, Native American versions are more inclusive:

“All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.” Black Elk

Even if you’re not prepared to go that far, “Be Nice to People” is a good start. As Kirsten and Ken’s card says:

“Remember the love that connects us.”

Peace and Joy to all this holiday season and for many years to come.

Kid stuff

I’ve been reading Aesop’s Fables. Most of us read some of Aesop’s stories as children: the conceited hare so impressed with his own speed that he took many diversions and even a nap and so lost the race to the slow but steady tortoise. This left us with a message to “Focus: the race isn’t always to the swift.”

Maybe we laughed at the fox who having tried in vain to achieve a goal, jumping as high as he could to grab some grapes, dusted himself off and said “those grapes are sour anyway.” Maybe we even adopted that phrase into our vocabulary when a sore loser denigrates the prize someone else has won. “He’s just talking ‘sour grapes.’”

Perhaps our parents admonished us about joking about serious subjects with the “Boy who cried ‘Wolf.’”

Who was this Aesop?

According to Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch, or more specifically according to Wikipedia’s report of those gentlemen, Aesop was Phrygian slave who lived on the Isle of Samos between 620-564 BCE. Evidently he wasn’t great at physical work, and was considered “supremely ugly.” (I’m going to question that characterization because I’ve been told that the plaster cast of the Hellenistic bronze statue above “kind of looks like you, Alan.”)

It turns out that Aesop was good at one thing. He was a storyteller. Apparently he was a good enough storyteller that his skill ultimately won him his freedom and a job advocating for wealthy Samians at court and he rose to the role of diplomat for King Croesus. So I guess storytelling was a good career in ancient Greece.

Aesop may or may not have existed. He didn’t leave us a book with a Library of Congress number and a copyright page. Other writers have written about him because he is a very interesting character. In the second century CE, an anonymous writer wrote The Aesop Romance, which describes his life as a slave of the philosopher Xanthus and later an advocate in the court of Croesus. Most scholars maintain this “biography” is a work of pure fiction, even though it builds upon accounts of Aristotle and Herodotus.

Much of the fables that have come down to us probably come from later periods and so the 2016 digiReads reprint of V.S. Vernon James 1912 translation I just read is not really “Aesop’s creation,” but a collection of folk tales over centuries that came to be attributed to Aesop. As described in the introduction by English author  G.K. Chesterton in his introduction,

“Aesop embodies an epigram not uncommon in human history; his fame is all the more deserved because he never deserved it. The firm foundations of common sense, the shrewd shots of uncommon sense that characterize all the Fables belong not to him but to humanity.”

So Aesop is famous because some ancient Greeks said he was and then some ancient Romans rediscovered him, and then some Renaissance men rediscovered him again, and then some nineteenth century men rediscovered the Renaissance and Aesop. All the while, we everyday folk shared the wisdom of the Fables with our children.

The wisdom of Aesop

These collected fables in the form I read them are 100-150 words each. The central characters are foxes, crows, hens, stags, oxen, horses, asses, wolves, eagles, cocks, hares, snakes. tortoises, and others. However, these animal stories communicate a great deal about human beings, our foibles, faults and failures, and occasionally some behavior worth emulating.  The Fables advise us about the world and our behavior:

• The world is full of trickery and liars who will tell you anything to gobble you up or take what you value. There are wolves who tell sheep to abandon the protection of sheep dogs with fatal consequence. There are poor woodsmen who will beg a branch from a generous ash tree to make a tool handle and return with his axe to cut the tree down. There are foxes who tell the goat to stand on hind legs so they can both escape the well. The fox promises to throw the rope down for the goat, but walks away as soon as he is free.
• Hypocrites speak loudly. The bear who wasn’t hungry turned up his nose at the foxes carrion meal saying ”Bears never bother a dead body.” “When you are hungry, I wish you’d leave the living alone,” said the fox.
• Be especially wary of flatterers. The fox tells a crow she has a beautiful singing voice so she opens her mouth to sing and drops the cheese she is holding, and the fox eats it.
• Pride and boastfulness frequently lead to doom. There is the boastful gnat who bites the lion, but as he gloats gets caught in the spider’s web.
• Be grateful for what you have don’t waste your energy on envy. There is the Wild Ass who envied the regular meals of the Pack Ass and who envied his wild brother’s freedom. They change places and the Wild Ass hated the workload and the Pack Ass was eaten by a lion.
• Think things through. Two very thirsty frogs sit on the edge of a deep well. One smells the sweet water and encourages the other to jump in, but the older says “are there flies to eat? And how do you propose we get out of the well?”
• Be prepared. The fox chides the boar for sharpening his tusks when there are no huntsmen around. “When there are huntsmen around I likely won’t have time to sharpen my tusks,” replied the boar.
• Sometimes there is justice. A slave escaped from his cruel master who had beat him and worked him near death. The slave hid in a cave, which turned out to be a lion’s den. The lion roared, but it soon became obvious this ferocity came from pain. The lion had a thorn in his paw that was infected. The slave removed the thorn and nursed the lion back to health. Later the slave was recaptured and as punishment for escaping thrown to a lion in the arena. The same lion licks his face and the slave is freed.

This fable is the plot of Androcles and the Lion, a 1912 play by George Bernard Shaw immortalized movies in 1948, 1952  and dozens of cartoons and children’s books. I guess I’m not the only writer who steals from Aesop.

Aesop, or at least the Fables have a sense of humor. One fable tells about Demades, a famous Athenian orator who couldn’t get legislators to listen, so he told a fable of a swallow, an eel, and Demeter who while traveling together came upon a river with no bridge. The eel swam over and the swallow flew over,” Demades said and proceeded with his oration on needed infrastructure. “What happened to Demeter?” The crowd screamed. Demades responded, “Demeter is very angry because you spend your time on fables and ignore the work of the people!” Listen up politicians.

Hercules upon achieving godhood was chided by Zeus for being nice to everyone at the feast except Plutus, god of wealth, whom Hercules openly dissed. “Yeah,” said Herc, “whenever I met Plutus on Earth, he was in the company of scoundrels.”

Another chuckle came from the story of the fox helping the sick lion hunt. The fox talked a stag into the lion’s den with flattery, but the lion lunged too soon and the stag got away. Reluctantly the fox went back to the stag and using deceit and even more flattery talked the stag back to his demise. The lion ate the whole deer and then looked for the delicacy, the stag’s brains, which the fox had stolen. The fox said, “this stag let himself be talked into the lion’s den’ not once, but twice. Clearly he had no brains.”

Aesop also presaged the Heisinger Uncertainty Principle and Schrodinger’s Cat. A rustic was determined to demonstrate that the Delphic Oracle could be proved wrong. He hid a bird in his pocket and asked the Oracle if the bird was alive or dead, preparing to release it if the Oracle said dead or kill it if it was predicted alive. The Oracle spoke, “the answer is in your hands.”

One wonders if the rustic was Aesop himself, because Aristotle tells us that Aesop died while on a diplomatic mission to Delphi for Croesus. Apparently Aesop was proud and boastful and insulted the Oracle. He was thrown off a cliff to his death.

Aesop apparently missed one of his major lessons:

Wisdom without humility is arrogance and hazardous to your health.