Sandro Botticelli’s interpretation of the Nativity (1473-75, oil on canvas. Columbia Museum of Art.

The greatest story ever sold

December 25, 2023

Today — Monday, Dec. 25 — is, as virtually everyone knows, Christmas Day, an occasion that has not always been about “peace on earth, good will to men.” Perhaps it was always thus, but it has become particularly more so in our politically divisive times.

There are those who resent what they see as their holy day being coopted by the commercial holiday. And then there are those who don’t want secular culture subsumed by what is essentially a religious tradition. What both groups have in common is that they see Christmas as an either/or proposition. In reality, it has always been a mix of the sacred and profane, as it were.

Covid, Ukraine and the meaning of suffering

April 10, 2022

“Hippo King” — a recent episode of PBS’ “Nature,” a show I find difficult to watch but am nonetheless drawn to — tells the story of a hippopotamus from birth through violent maturity to his becoming the primary bull in his pod and eventual death at age 35. In a key moment, the young hippo, on his own for the first time, is eyed by a pride of lionesses. But they turn their attention to a swift gazelle that flashes before them until they attack and devour it as our hippo protagonist watches and moves on, perhaps relieved that it was not his day.

I find myself thinking of that hippo of late as Passover approaches and Holy Week begins in a saason that has always symbolized death and rebirth. Why do we suffer? Well, I think we know why we suffer — OPS (other people’s selfishness) for one thing and then there are those calamities the flesh is heir to that we generally have no control over, like many illnesses.

Merry, well, you know

December 23, 2017

We hear a lot at this time of year about putting the Christ back in Christmas – or, more recently, putting the Christmas back in Christmas. Indeed, one of President Donald J. Trump’s campaign promises was that we would say “Merry Christmas” again – as if we ever stopped.

This used to be a religious campaign against the commercialization of the season. With the, um, advent of Trump, it has become less about the materialism of the season – it’s hard to believe that he and his administration object to anything that makes money – and more about reclaiming a Christian identity that, they think, has been co-opted by multiculturalism and political correctness. It is factionalism versus globalism and, inevitably, us versus them, whoever they are.

And you have to wonder: Why? ...

As the Easter egg rolls: A bromantic breakup

April 18, 2017

Easter eggs are not all that have been breaking lately. Hearts have been broken, too, as the bromance of the century ends.

Donald J. Trumpet and Vladdie “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin called it quits after a relationship that lasted less time than that of Aaron Rodgers and Olivia Munn but certainly longer than Britney Spears’ first marriage.

“There is a low level of trust between our countries,” Secretary of State “Sexy Rexy” Tillerson, the John Forsythe of our 1980s nighttime soap opera, noted somberly after meeting with the Russians. ...

Resurrection

April 16, 2017

As Lent ends and the Easter season begins today with Christians celebrating Jesus’ Resurrection, TV has once again presented its share of documentaries and films about Jesus’ Passion.

PBS’ “Last Days of Jesus” offers a detailed consideration of what it meant to die by crucifixion. I now no longer watch such scenes, just as I no longer watch horror movies. “Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows,” as President Bill Clinton put it at the Democratic National Convention this past summer, prefer to dwell on happier circumstances. Not that we eschew suffering. Indeed, the surest way to prolong suffering is the refusal to endure it. It’s just that we no longer feel the need to go out of our way to create or endure needless suffering. ...