Epiphany

An inflatable Santa and my daughter taught me something I needed to know. It would be wrong to call it a Christmas miracle. Yet it made me a better man. I will tell you what happened, but first I need to give you some background.

I left faith behind when I was a teenager. But I remained a cultural Christian. I grew up with the story of a doomed baby, born to an itinerant, working-class Jewish family in Judea. A swaddled newborn, laying in a manger - whose nativity was heralded by an angel, and illuminated by a star - attended to by shepherds and wise men bearing gifts.

I learned he grew into a man who preached a philosophy of care and compassion for the least of us. His fame grew. His audience split into those who saw the wisdom in his words and those threatened by his anti-establishment rhetoric. As is so often the case, the bullies won - at least on the surface. For the believers, his death was merely the beginning of his influence. And millennias of generations have celebrated his message of tolerance.

As a boy, I accepted what adults told me as gospel. I went to church every Sunday. And listened to the man in the black robe and dog collar speak elevated words of wisdom. I was a chorister, clad in a red cassock and white surplice, who sang in harmony with other boys. I finished my ecclesiastical career as a cross-bearing crucifer, leading the vicar to and from his responsibilities at the altar.

Then came my age of reason. The Bible’s stories stayed instructive. Jesus’s philosophy maintained its worth. But I could no longer see any divinity in the matter.

Years later, as a father of two children, Christmas remained a magical time of year. As toddlers, my daughters were unquestioningly grateful for the gifts and revelry. Even later, when belief in Santa Claus was no longer sustainable - one child noticed he had the same handwriting as my wife - the season remained a cherished time. And as the years passed, not much changed, until it did.

Allow me to explain.

There comes a time when meeting the right young woman weakens a young man’s commitment to bachelorhood and a child-free life. Attraction turns to love. Love to a desire to share the rest of your life with another. And when that desire is reciprocated, the conversation turns to marriage and parenthood.

We were married in my mother’s church - New York City’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian. I was an atheist married by a minister in God’s house because it made my mum happy. Newly-wed bliss led to expectation. My wife told me we were going to become parents. We bought the book “What to Expect When You Are Expecting”. And started thinking about names. Friends and relatives who were parents - both new to the game and seasoned veterans - were generous in their advice.

As I watched my wife expand towards motherhood, I imagined holding my newborn child. I even dreamed about the day she would walk and talk - and go to kindergarten. But that was as far as my reveries took me. My first daughter was joined by a second. They were very different.

Christmases came and went and my infants grew into toddlers. Then girls. Picture books gave way to chapter books. And soon they did not need me to read to them anymore. They started school and made new friends. Rulered height marks inched up the door molding where their mother and I recorded their physical growth. And we watched their intellectual development with respect and pride.

A year ago, at Christmas time, I was driving with my older daughter down a country road from our rural home to the local village. It was a dark, drizzly evening. No street lamps lit the road. But through the rain-streaked car windows, I could see houses bedizened with holiday decorations. Wreaths hung from door-knockers. White electric candles stood sentinel on window sills. Front stairs, porch rails, and gutters were festooned with lights. Some an austere white. Others a polychromatic exuberance. Some lights shone with stolid determination. Others winsomely flickered. In the most ambitious homes, computer-controlled, holiday displays raced hither and yon in synchronicity with music you could tune to with a car radio.

My reaction to all of this was mixed. I preferred a modest and tasteful display. Yet I could appreciate the professional effort and expense that the homeowners most dedicated to excess put into their holiday visuals. However, I am human. A man with a taint of the Grinch informing a comforting cynicism. I had rigid standards for what comprised a tasteful exhibition. And I disdained displays where quantity and size trampled quality and nuance in the contest to have the most aggressive ostentation in the neighborhood.

In my scorn, I rated inflatable lawn displays as the highest example of low-brow taste.

My child and I passed one house - a small ranch - that to me exemplified the worst of this pneumatic assault on acceptable aesthetics. On the front lawn of this modest bungalow stood a huge and disproportionate blown-up Santa driving an inflated old-time sleigh drawn by cartoonish reindeer.

The homeowners were so proud of their display that not only were Santa and his accouterments internally illuminated. They were also bathed in bright lights that shone from fixtures in the ground and spotlights fixed under the house’s eaves.

As we drove past, I turned to my daughter and pointing to the display said something along the lines of “Can you believe what some people do?”

She replied, “It makes them happy.”

Dear reader, I cannot give full expression to my feelings. Her words were a bucket of iced-water that washed the scales from my eyes. I could see again. I felt small, and mean, and stupid. My conceit vanished as if benevolence had flicked a switch. I was abashed. I had no retort. I said nothing.

I doubt she paid much mind to what she had said. But to me, it opened a flood of recriminatory self-analysis. I had to face my uncharitable thoughts and wonder how I had become this self-satisfied, smug Pharisee. My superiority evaporated.

A country lane became my road to Damascus. A daughter’s observation led to my epiphany.

For the first time since my children were small, I grasped the meaning of the season. Religion has become the tool of fundamentalist to ram their unChristian opinions down other’s throats. Here I was, just as bad as them, a hypocritical non-believer thinking that my belief of the way things ought to be had more value than another’s. I had forgotten the important lessons taught me by the son of a God I did not believe in. I had judged and thrown the first stone.

But there was far more to my revelation. I saw my daughter with fresh appreciation. She was a familiar stranger. A new person I was pleased to meet.

I did not imagine, nor was I told, back when my wife and I were expecting our first child - when a prospective parents thoughts are only of babyhood and infancy - the sheer joy of becoming the parent of an adult.

It was at this moment I realized my child was now an independent thinker who had things to teach me. We could have a conversation in which I would learn something. The disciple had become the guide. I understood I must now subject my long-held and cherished beliefs to more honest scrutiny. You must never stop learning and you should always take the opportunity to correct your mistakes.

A young woman showed me that wisdom does not belong exclusively to the old. And in a season given to the exchange of presents, I could not have received a better gift.