Photo: Jacob Windham

Thomas Moore, the psychotherapist and author of many books, including Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, wrote this beautiful piece, “The Eternal, Holy Night,” about Christmas for Tikkun in 2003.

It is no accident that the festival of Christmas occurs at the time of year when the darkness has reached its low point and winter light begins to appear. Christmas is the honoring of light and the hope that comes with the end of nature’s and the human soul’s dark night. In the symbolic turning of time, Christmas is that part of the annual cycle that invites us to leave darkness behind and enter a new way of being, to start a new “year,” that is, a new era of enlightened decisions rather than unconscious acts.

The most stirring songs of the season, “O Holy Night” and “Silent Night,” and the popular verse-tale “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” explore the emotion of night, especially this night on which light once again shows itself. We honor this mythic night full of hopeful appearances–angels with their song, flying reindeer, kings bearing gifts of gold and spices, a lowly stable aflame with the brilliant arrival of the divine child.

Historically, Christmas was heavily influenced by the Roman festival of Saturnalia, a time of revelry and feasting when the burden of rules was suspended and values were turned upside down. Its arrival reminds us of certain values that we forget during the rest of the year. Why not learn from Christmas Saturnalia to be more forgiving and less moralistic, not to justify our existence by hard work alone but to find meaning in play and celebration, and to give more of ourselves to our children?

One of the most dangerous developments in contemporary religion and spirituality is the stress on rules, authority, heavy moral repression, and highly abstract and intellectual belief. Even new spiritual movements are often joyless and depriving. The modernism of the twentieth century created a largely disenchanted world in which we must now live. Most of what was enchanting in life fell to scientific analysis and historical research. The enthronement of fact chased the magic into cartoons and television programs about witches and spells and away from our homes and neighborhoods. The re-enchantment of daily life is crucial to getting over our dour moralism, our draining workaholism, and our melancholic belief in hard research. If you have lost enchantment, you are liable to divisiveness, intolerance, and aggression. If you don’t love life, you are more susceptible to hating your neighbor.

Christmas gives us a remarkable antidote to the stern, demanding deity of self-righteousness–Santa Claus! This demi-urge, this spiritual figure who lives at the top of the world is jolly, generous, and fat. The only other spiritual father images I know that are even close to being so jovial and life-affirming are certain representations of the Buddha, where he is round, smiling, and accommodating. If we all had this kind of a god-image, we might be able to get along with each other and find peace among ourselves through the sheer enjoyment of life. War is an expression of deep emotional disturbance, severe neurosis, and the utter loss of humanity. Christmas is a feast for everyone, an opportunity to restore hope and to take part in meaningful and deeply-felt rituals, and to reconnect with our common humanity.

Thomas Moore

Read the rest here. But this paragraph is irresistible:

Some call this philosophy of mine “lite,” superficial, and even superstitious, but I believe it touches the very heart of our problems. I think that if you become too spiritual–insisting only on meaningful actions and highly intellectualized understanding–the human community suffers a loss of soul, and that loss is the source of conflict. The stern, frowning, spiritual zealot seems to enjoy divisions and wars and political battles; while the soulful holy fool appreciates the beauty and richness of other cultures, eating their food, playing their music, and embracing their spiritualities.