Christmas Reflection and Holiday Season's Greeting

It is a week before Christmas.

As I continue to travel on my journey, the topic of free will came up repeatedly.

It recently came up again while discussing tarot, divination, fortune telling, fate, divinity, spirituality, and self empowerment.

As I dedicated myself to Advent reflections, I looked back and came across a blog post which I wrote as part of an unplanned 5 year long inward inspection and a much needed healing period. This one I wrote about 3 Christmases ago.

I would like to share that with you.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Blessed Yule, Summer and Winter Solstices, Happy Hannukah, and Happy Kwanza.



“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. […]”


                                                                                                     -- Gandalf the Grey (“The Hobbit”)
 

At 4 am on the day before Christmas, I was awoken by a sound of a TV programme talking about that quintessential Christmas carol, Silent Night. (I often need background noise to lull me to sleep). Along with some inquiries into the mystery of who wrote the poem and the melody to “Stille Nacht” was a story of World War I, the 1914 Christmas Truce.

I looked up the “1914 Christmas Truce” and found several sites with very detailed and personal information and description of the event thanks to the diary the soldiers kept.  My brain was fueled by curiosity, and still caffeine deprived, I simply bookmarked some pages so I can read them later, and in a daze of half-sleepiness moved on to YouTube. There, I found some clips of documentaries related to the event. Words spoken from beyond the graves through diaries, grainy black and white pictures and faces looking back at me from almost 100 years ago, narrations and re-enactments, told me the most amazing story of any war stories I have ever heard, and apparently, never to be repeated again in history.

It started with some singing. Stille Nacht was sung in the German trenches in a muddy and dark Flanders night. This was soon joined in by Silent Night. Same song. Different languages. Flickering of lit candles on a pine tree followed, held up high by a German soldiers risking head and limbs above the trench. Perhaps faith in goodwill, perhaps mere recklessness as they care no more for what could happen to them. Christmas tree was an alien concept outside of Germany at the time, and naturally sparked intrigues and curiosity which combined with war fatigue probably won the day from fear, propelling the British soldiers to stick their heads out to take a look. At some point, a haphazard “Merry Christmas” sign popped up from the British side, and at some other point in this amazing story, a piece of chocolate cake was thrown around, a Christmas gift from the Brits to the German. Enemies to enemies. Friends to friends.

Perhaps faith in the honour of human kind, perhaps mere curiosity, or even indifference to life and death after a long and arduous battle, before long a few people on the German side poked their heads out and climbed over the trenches with their hands up in the air, and their weapon lowered to the ground, and the Brits joined in. They met, shook hands, chatted, exchanged buttons, hats and helmets, belts, food and drinks, showed each other photos of loved ones back home. A British soldier who was a barber in his other life had German soldiers in line for him to wield a sharp object over their heads and necks as they kneeled before him for the job to be done. One person juggled. And somewhere in there, was someone’s interesting choice of packing priority, or perhaps a result of an amazing burst of hopeful optimism, in the form of a football (soccer ball)…! They kicked the ball around together. British khaki and German grey, the narrator said. A photograph of German and British soldiers playing football together in the middle of a world war was amazing to behold. They visited each other’s side, and cross the enemy line freely, shared meals and drinks together. Sitting around and chatting like old friends.

The impromptu truce which started at the bottom of the rank, soon spread upwards. Unofficial sanction by superiors from each side took the form of a gifts exchange, a barrel of alcoholic beverage (from a raid of the local brewery) was first offered by the German side, and the British officer’s stock of plum pudding from the British side (the British was unprepared for the gift exchange). A handshake of gentlemanly agreement sealed the truce and a time when the war was to start again was agreed upon.

The truce never spread widely or equally across the board. It did not happen at all fronts, and in the fronts which did, did not occur in the same manner, or for the same length of time. Incidents were recorded of foes becoming friends and becoming foes again as fears and distrusts crept back in even before the end of the truce was declared.

It appears that decency and goodness, although seemingly so natural, are so very fragile. Especially when competed against human weaknesses. It seems that goodness is always going to have to be fought for.

How can something so natural can be so arduous at the same time…..

At the agreed time, each commander faced each other, each standing on their side of the line, two shots were fired into the sky and the truce was officially over. There was an extended period of long inactivity after that. I suppose it was a lot harder to shoot at friends. Everyone was waiting for everyone else to start the war again. Conscripted German soldiers many of whom did not believe in the war were close to mutiny, returning to their war position only at their commander’s gunpoint.

My early morning YouTube excursion ended with an image of a lone British soldier, walking across the enemy line, to bring his German enemy friends some jam, and to show them some photos. Such a basic human need, to trust, to reach out, and to share. There is something in all of us, we hope, which are more inclined for peace, and friendship, kindness, goodness, and hope.

The solitary silhouette then walked calmly back to his own side.

A sniper, which was said to operate like a lone wolf and exist under rules of conducts that are their own, took an aim, and fired. The lone figure fell.

And peace, which had insisted on lingering long after it was banished, finally dissipated.

One man. One decision.

Hope and faith. Fear and distrust.

The human power that is free will. The human weakness that is free will.

How much power one ordinary person has. How much power each of us have. To decide, and to choose.

We often hear of questions about where God is during wars, and how the true nature of human kind is revealed in all the ugliness of the world.

If one is to believe in free will, and the power of humanity, then surely, the question is: 

With all the goodness in the world, what have we done with it?

It is there.

“Peace on earth, and goodwill towards men”.

[....] Merry Christmas everyone....!

(January, 2013)

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.