Godless

Last Christmas, the company had an ‘end of year’ party seasonably called a ‘Winter Solstice’ celebration at an expensive restaurant on the Columbia River front. This was a sign, for us employees, that we would soon be out of the economic danger zone. We hadn’t had such a party for a couple of years, and in fact we had been on 4 day work weeks for nearly as long. Coming January, we would be returning to full 5 day employment. Slowly, slowly.

Winter Solstice party? Well, if that isn’t trying to be politically correct, I don’t know what is. Bring the separation of Church and State home this year for Christmas! I’ve worked for the same family for thirty years, and we’d always had Christmas parties, no matter who was invited. This year the middle management—the task of setting up company social functions falls on them—was in a quandary about what to do: A new employee whose religion forbids holidays.

Well, Christian holidays, anyway, and birthdays, and with a poker-faced resistance. So, the culturally unaware decided to do what they thought best, and voilà, we were going to have a Winter Solstice party. After all, that’s not a religious holiday, but simply an astronomical event that conveniently occurs near the end of the calendar year. It could’ve been a lunar eclipse party, or maybe a get-together to celebrate first snowfall, but neither was the case last year.

As it turned out, that employee didn’t sign up for the party, and we thought to ourselves, ‘he’s not coming after all, so why all the fuss?’ but then, at the last minute, he showed up with his family, and we all had a pleasant time. They may not like to observe birthdays and Christian holdays, but this brother, at least, liked to have a good time; he knows how to socialize, even with us ‘unsaved’ folks. So, the party was a success and fun for all.

One of the reasons why the choice of restaurant on the water front was, at night a flotilla of small boats courses up and down in front of the restaurants and hotels, festooned with holiday lights and images for the enjoyment of the parties in progress. We waited and waited and finally, here they came! A strange group of floating light shows and billboards, with every kind of theme, from overtly Christian to merely ‘seasons greetings.’

One of the managers, a young dad with wife and a couple of kids in tow, was exuberating about the floats, mostly, I think, to drum up enthusiasm in others. Ordinarily, he’s not the kind of guy to be exuberant about anything much, except statistics and making money, and he has a hard time finding a sense of humor even more than I do. But here he was, getting bowled over by a bunch of silly floats. ‘Did you see that one? Wow, it even has a crucifix on it!’

A crucifix? Well, not exactly. One of the floats had a cross-shape outline in lights as a back drop to, I think, a nativity scene. I was surprised at his exclamation. He is as thoroughly godless an individual as I have ever met, and his knowledge of Christianity is, at best, garnished from pop culture and films. This is not a judgment on him, but an observation of what effect a full generation of state-sponsored godlessness has on a nation.

Godless, not so much an adjective of contempt as that of sorrow. A whole generation has been brought up in the world’s most ‘Christian’ country, not knowing the difference between a cross and a crucifix. This is more serious than not knowing what a phonograph is. Just writing this word sounds strange to me, and even I looked it up just now to check my memory—it’s really just another name for a record player, isn’t it?

So we hear in church, not every Lord’s Day, but certainly on a few, that we should ‘bring a friend or family member to church,’ but very few do. ‘Everyone who wants to be is already there,’ we think to ourselves, and shrug off the suggestion. Some of us, including me, would be embarrassed by some of the things we see in or at church on a given Sunday, but why don’t we just ‘bring someone along’? Good question. And I wonder, just who is ‘Godless.’