As are many if not most of us, I am ambivalent about the holiday season. At various times I have celebrated Chanukah, Christmas, and Winter Solstice, but none of them speaks to me. Nor will Kwanzaa do the trick, for the obvious reason that I am not African American. I admire Kwanzaa as a made-to-order holiday, though; it is far less offensive that most of the other holidays celebrated this time of year. It doesn't pretend to be what it is not.
And yet at the same time I enjoy at least some of the trappings of the season. The decorations are festive; I enjoy getting and giving gifts; the holiday songs are fun; and even the cheesy holiday movies on The Hallmark Channel have a certain weird charm. Not that there are not classy holiday movies as well--I look forward to It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Bishop's Wife every year. My wife Carol enjoys lighting the candles every December, and although I unfailingly chide her for it (she's not Jewish, after all, although I was born that way) I rather enjoy the repetitive ceremony. It doesn't go as far as potato latkes, unfortunately, but those I can get in our favorite Russian restaurant in Chicago, complete with sour cream and apple sauce.
Carol is deeply involved in the local Unitarian Universalist chapter, but I can't bring myself to engage in even this least offensive type of non-religious religion. I profess myself an atheist, and I guess I am about as hard-core as it gets, as I have nothing but scorn for those who profess a belief in some god or other. I honestly cannot understand how an educated adult in the twenty-first century can truly believe such hogwash. I mostly keep this to myself, since some good old boy with a gun might take it into his empty little head to teach me a lesson and send me to the hell that does not exist. Or worse, that I might become the target for conversion by some Mormon or Catholic or Seventh Day Adventist or whatever.
Which brings me to the subject of the Church of Scientology. It is well known the its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, was a failed science fiction writer. What is less well known is that he made the entire thing up out of whole cloth in order to win a bet. Here's the story, which I heard from another, more successful, science fiction writer of the same vintage (Frederik Pohl), who was married to a friend of ours.
In the late forties or early fifties, a bunch of would-be writers, including Pohl and Hubbard, were living in Toronto and barely making ends meet. Hubbard told the others that he bet that he could make up a religion that people would swallow. He then proceeded to invent Scientology, and the rest is history. It is no coincidence that he wrote a number of very bad novels in support of his religious revelation. Nor is it a coincidence that he made a fortune from it. Fred Pohl was a better writer, and he eventually did okay, but he had way too much integrity to take Hubbard's way out.
Incidentally, although I have no personal insight, I presume something along the same lines happened when some nut invented the Mormon faith as well. Magic glasses, indeed! Although I must admit, if you're going to believe six impossible things before breakfast, like for example a guy being executed and then rising from the dead three days later; or a burning bush talking to another guy, who then shows up with a couple of magic tablets giving the people commandments, then I guess believing in magic glasses is no great stretch. The great thing about the Mormons, though, is that whenever he wants to the head guy can have a revelation and change church doctrine for all time. That's what he did maybe 40 years ago to allow people of African descent to be full members of the church, and presumably what he will do to allow gays and lesbians and the transgendered the same privileges in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.
None of which has much to do with the holiday season, which stimulated this blog entry in the first place. Some days I just have to vent, and this turned out to be one of those days. A friend of mine, who blogs much better than I do (probably because she writes much better than I do), sees the holiday season as a time of change and transformation. Letitia Moffitt posted today: "So much of what happens in life is beyond our control, it’s nice that at least for a little while, we can change things, or hold on to them, or both, as necessary." I couldn't agree more.
I am, however, much more ambivalent, not to say pessimistic, than that. I really enjoy giving gifts, the more lavish the better. But while I enjoy receiving gifts, I prefer things like books and DVDs; the bigger stuff I get for myself. And I prefer staying home and watching a movie to going to parties or, heavens forfend, traveling to visit relatives. The gift thing I sort of understand; we never had much when I was a kid, and I am simultaneously delighted I can afford more now and trained to expect less for myself.
That goes along with giving to charity. Since I can afford more now, I try my best to give about 10% after taxes; I sometimes make it and I sometimes don't. I am very picky about where I will give my money, though. Generally speaking I want no religious affiliation. That includes things like the national Habitat for Humanity, although I will give $100 from time to time to the local chapter, upon the Board of which I once sat for three years. Before I will give to a charity I check on how much of their money is actually given to the cause they support. Far too many spend way too much on fundraising, and pay their CEOs way too much, including several you might think were good if you didn't look it up. Much of my giving goes to local and regional food banks, and Doctors Without Borders. This year Planned Parenthood gets a nod, for obvious reasons, although I prefer to make a more political statement with a contribution to NARAL. I'm also involved with a local effort to save an historic Art Deco movie theater, and I plan to continue to give to them until the place is fully restored and once again up and running. The key word in most of these is local.
I have slowed down considerably in the rate at which I post blog entries. I presume this is just part of the natural aging process (I'm pushing 70 fairly hard); I don't have as much I want to say. I've more or less given up on three book projects, which for me is unusual. I keep saying I won't be in any more plays, but so far I always find an excuse to audition just one more time. At the moment I'm in Kurt Vonnegut's Who Am I This Time for the Charleston Community Theatre, and the local university is doing Romeo and Juliet in the Spring. I've started thinking I could do Capulet rather well, and those students need a role model, right? Carol thinks I might do better as Juliet's grandfather, but she doesn't seem to realize I can still play 40 convincingly. Well, 50. Okay, 60. But he could be that old, right? Any maybe the actor playing Mercutio will really break a leg and . . . .
Sorry; got a little carried away there. Happy holidays, or in the words of the character I was born to play, "Bah, Humbug!"
