Familiar sounds, familiar sights
Bells, tinsel and those pretty lights;
The aged tale of Dickens’ Scrooge
And carols played in Bajan spouge
As streets of Bridgetown overflow
With shoppers bustling to and fro.
Toys, postcards, choc’lates, Christmas trees,
Sorrel and ham and rum and peas,
New clothes, new blinds, living room suites
Add to the sum of Christmas treats.
When Christmas Eve comes to its end
More habits take their grip again:
Some faithful to their high church past
Brave day’s dark close for midnight mass.
And later A, C and de crew,
Sam Couchie and de Duppy too
Dress up to kill at crack of dawn
To sit in church – and sleep and yawn?
Or later still to Queen’s Park trek
Dressed to the nines, in fine-ry decked:
Men in latest, women in style
For cam’ras, stares they pose awhile
And the Police Band sweetly plays
Secular strains or Jesus praise.
Next all man turns to drink and food
And gourmandizing is not rude
As fam’lies gather and enjoy
This yearly fete for baby boy.
Soon ‘ethnic fatigue’ wins the bout
Deliv’ring zzzzzzzzs, snuffing lights out.
Somewhere along there’re gifts to share
And postcard words with greetings dear.
Yet somewhere near’s the sceptics’ quest:
A virgin birth? and all the rest:
A star?A Saviour? Son of God?
And not too muted hints of fraud.
Sceptics abound. I talk, often at length, with some inside my head.
I usually don’t give the time of day to the ones outside – and I have met my fair share.
I say I am a Christian and they get busy trying to contradict my beliefs or, more than likely, pour scorn on them. Yeah, they “care” about my beliefs, but I never met one who seemed to care about me.
If you are a believer, you have probably had the same experience. The sceptics would pass you like a ship in the night otherwise, but let them hear that you are a believer and they start to attack pastors, choir members, theology; drop remarks like “But how intelligent people could believe such foolishness?”.
They want to contemptuously quiz you about the “contradictions” in the Bible – and never an ear about your sick mother, your unemployed brother, how tired you look, how come yuh limping, how you managing with yuh children.
They would not personally give you $500 or $1 000 if a man called Big Trouble lick yuh life oneside, but they want to get up close and personal ’bout your beliefs.
They are not generous, forbearing, empathetic, friendly, concerned – never met one like that. If they really cared, would they swat at your beliefs as though they were trying to kill flies?
Why do people who show no evidence of caring about you care what you believe in that very personal area? Why are people like that? Is it a search for a sense of superiority over others?
Christians, you better watch out that you don’t behave like the sceptics, proselytizing here, there and everywhere, and people can’t find clues that you really care about them either.
There may be many reasonable questions to ask, and I myself may or may not be sceptical about certain aspects Christmas and more.
But I en no sceptic throwing cold water on your Christmas. I have my views, you have yours – and unless we become good friends or, as 1 Peter 3:15 says, you ask me a reason for the hope that is in me, it will be mostly “Hello”, “Goodbye” and “The West Indies lost again?”
But pro or con, the world needs more redemptive interactions – of which my sceptic interlopers apparently know nothing. Above all, however you swing it, that is the message of Christmas: redemption – an attempt to embrace, not to slap down.
Life is more than what we believe. At Christmas and otherwise.
Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor. Email [email protected]
