The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Light and Love at Christmas I wonder what Jesus Christ would have thought if he could have seen the shopping center which burst upon my view the other...
...They found an ancient festival which served admirably as a carrier of their message...
...Probably it was no more than a casual kind of understanding...
...Inside and out, the whole merchandising mart glowed...
...The Christmas trees in the shopping center, rather than pines or firs or hemlocks outlined with lighted candles, were modernistic structures given the shape of trees...
...I don't know what sort of contract was struck between the Christian priests and the sun-worshippers in those woods...
...The priests who served as traveling salesmen for the religion of love were clever chaps...
...It was, of course, misunderstood and disguised and sometimes debased, but in time it showed a remarkable capacity for demonstrating its original meaning...
...How all this came about is easy to understand...
...The great nations were crowding out the small...
...Over the years there has been some criticism and growling about Christmas, but the combination of light and love has nevertheless worked famously from that time down to our day...
...They had very little of either artificial light or heat...
...In Western Europe the Christian priests came upon a rare piece of good luck...
...It was done, and the result was one of the most delightful holidays in the calendar...
...Jesus Christ, it is safe to say, never heard of Thomas A. Edison or any kind of artificial illumination, except soft, artistic candles...
...And it was habitually marked by ceremonies at which the yule log was among the most sacred symbols...
...Any break in their gloomy existence was eagerly welcomed...
...It would be the easiest thing in the world, the priests recognized, to tie love and light together in one joyous festival...
...THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Light and Love at Christmas I wonder what Jesus Christ would have thought if he could have seen the shopping center which burst upon my view the other evening...
...Wrapped up in a number of alluring stories, fables, and practical short sermons, this doctrine of love was sent eastward and westward over the world...
...But looking back over the long years since it was made, it seems to me that operating under an agreement to combine light and love we have done much better by the first item than by the second...
...They gleamed in blinding effulgence...
...Minute by minute sunlight was meted out in more generous measure...
...While carrying their message of love, the priests discovered that the hearty and husky dwellers of the dark West European woods already had a festival of light...
...After all, Joseph and Mary had not carried a calendar or a diary on the road to Bethlehem...
...Instead of a United Nations, he proposed a union of loving human beings...
...They did not know any more about the exact birthday of Jesus Christ than you or I do...
...It turned out to be just about the most effective propaganda ever devised...
...This celebration, it seemed, was much older than Christianity itself, going far back into the experience of these simple folk, who, incidentally, were among our own ancestors...
...Love your neighbor as yourself, he advised...
...The star followed by the humble shepherds on the night of his birth must have shed a soft and modest light by comparison...
...Here was an ancient feast, a festival of light all set up and ready to go...
...As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that either of them could write...
...Our wandering priests had a bright idea...
...The rich were robbing the poor...
...Songs have been written, pictures painted, bells rung, candles lighted...
...Here was an important moment, a long-awaited moment, a moment of great joy...
...Actually, they were thousands of electric bulbs attached to metallic frames-trees literally built out of light...
...His heart bled for all who suffered, and he saw a simple, direct way of starting things on the way toward improvement...
...But the greatest gaiety of all came at the time when the sun turned in its course and started back toward the north...
...The days, which had ruthlessly grown shorter, and the nights, which had relentlessly become longer and colder, now slowly began to change their ways...
...His mind was taken up with other matters...
...So, to make things more bearable, they devised celebrations-some of them quite gay, with fires and dances and songs...
...It was as simple as that...
...For the forestdwellers winter must have been a dark and difficult time...
...And now we have this ocean of light at my neighborhood shopping center...
Vol. 45 • December 1962 • No. 26
