Christ climbed down.

You know, I am not that religious. (Don't act surprised).

But my father used to drag me to church years ago, and I remember this woman telling a story about how she was on her last $20, and she would need to spend it on, say, food. And she would later find, mysteriously, another $20 bill in her wallet. And she said it kept happening and that she knew it was the grace of God in her life.

My reaction as an 8-year-old little girl was, naturally, to think, "What kind of cockamamie horseshit evangelical crap is this?" But don't you find there is some essential truth to this cockamamie horseshit evangelical story? That even when you are at the bottom, you still have something to give, and that goodness does come back to you.

I hope tonight, of all nights, even the most godless among us can enjoy the myths of the season. The ones that teach us to give more, to be more, to live better, to love truer, and to give away your last $20 and know that, maybe in only a cosmic way, it will be coming back to you.

And with that little sermon, I leave you with my favorite little ditty from Lawrence Ferlinghetti.



Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
and German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest of
Second Comings




Merry Christmas, you crazy bitches.