The Arrival | Advent 2023

Second Movement: Blessed Are The Have-Nots

Santa in Gaza 2015

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Find an audio reading of this Black Eyed Story above.

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Despite the fact that the news cycles of current events bring nothing but the horrors of war, genocide, and anti-semitism to our doors (as if they are as sweet as children singing Christmas carols), we decided to go ahead with our plans to buy a 7.5 ft. flocked, pink Christmas tree and put it up in early November because, well, unlike a real one, it wouldn’t die before we even made it to Christmas Eve. And we desperately needed something to look perpetually alive amidst so much darkness.  

With news of genocide and war and war crimes in Gaza, I know it’s not the politically correct move to make. But when your college-aged kid moves back home after being involuntarily committed to a state psychiatric hospital because you dropped the ball on paying their insurance, you make it up to them the best you know how.

And if you can’t afford to buy them a pony, a pink Christmas tree will do nicely. That’s our defense. Unless you too can say that earlier this year the state carted your kid off to a psych ward and refused to tell you anything about it, you can keep your finger-wagging to yourself. 

Besides, I never claimed to be an activist. I’m a mother who is a writer and so my job is to share these words: when your child gets stolen and nobody bothers to tell them that you are looking for them and love them and want nothing more than to turn the whole world upside down and give it a vigorous shake until they fall out into your lap, you’ll do anything to make things right again when they’re finally safe at home.

You will buy the pink Christmas tree and watch the Barbie movie as many times as they want. You will allow their main-squeeze to stay night after night at your place, sleeping in the same bed behind a closed door even though you always thought “never under my roof.” You will welcome them like they’re a celebrity staying at the Ritz and you’re their concierge. You will look the other way when your kid whips out a vape pen. You will take them to the dispensary when they need to refill it. You will become part savior, part enabler—you’ll never know which and when. You will take a wrecking ball to your carefully crafted tower of house rules that you’ve been erecting since you rocked them in your belly. 

I know, I know. You don’t think you would ever allow such carousing in your Bible-Belt built house. As for you and your household, you will serve the Lord and all that… yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. I’ve said as much myself. But when you see your beautiful child shatter, and hope fade from their eyes, when you feel their body curl up like the witch’s feet beneath the house in The Wizard of Oz and you are the house that befell them, you will see differently, my friend. Your guilt will call you out on your BS and self-righteousness and you will do and say anything to be forgiven. I know, I know: train children in the way they should go; when they grow old, they won’t depart from it – and I hear you. I really do. 

But after all that training is done and done and you send them out into the world armored with the breastplate of so-called-righteousness, girded with the buckle of everyone’s-truth-but-theirs, shod with shoes of peace two sizes too small, and shielded and armed with their memory verses from years of family devotionals… and—when they still end up in a flippin’ psychiatric ward – not because you put them there, but because the state did and didn’t even bother to tell you – I guarantee you that a weed pen will be the least of your worries. 

And you will buy the pink Christmas tree because it’s the closest thing to a unicorn or a rainbow or a drag queen – and these days, unicorns and rainbows and drag queens are the only things that help them believe that their life—all 21 years of it crammed with heartaches and angst and a pandemic—is worth living. 

Yes, there is a war outside, but there is one inside of them too. You see the bombs and you worry about the genocide that continues to try to take root within your kid - and within all six rooms that you share. You will use that tree to shield you all from the systematic, deliberate onslaught of grenades and missiles flying your way from every direction. You will weep with the world and you will love your dang tree.

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Hanukkah in Palestine 2013

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Have those Christian leaders forgotten that Jesus’s story is knitted with oppression?
How did we come to see the Nativity scene as a beacon of hope
rather than the radical place of rebellion that it truly was?

This year, there are antiwar groups who have called for boycotts on Black Friday. Some have called for boycotts on the entire holiday season including Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. It all makes sense. How do we ignore the missing loved ones of Israeli and Palestinian families? How do we swallow news of genocide along with our Gingerbread Lattes, mulled wine, and eggnog?

It’s not easy for us westerners who are also cogs in the giant wheel of the machine of capitalism to take a pause. Remember the pandemic? People risked death just to go out for tacos. I wish I could say we’ve learned how to be more communal and supportive, but we haven’t.

Might I suggest that maybe, just maybe, these boycotts feel a heck of a lot like those black squares that so many posted in solidarity with Black people after George Floyd's death. And might I point out that since then, unarmed Black bodies have continued to be snuffed out by the police, but most of us haven’t heard the names of those victims. It’s like the world has forgotten that this is still a problem. We’re not woke – we’re just sleepwalking. 

In solidarity with the people of Gaza, Christian leaders in Bethlehem are skipping Christmas festivities which to me seems ironic. Have they read the Christmas story? It’s brutal. In it, there are slaughtered babies, a tyrannical ruler, and families (including the Holy family) fleeing for cover!

I can’t think of a better place to light candles and bring the light of the holiday this year than in the exact place where Jesus’s story began, Palestine, which was occupied then as it is now.

Have those Christian leaders forgotten that Jesus’s story is knitted with oppression?And how did we come to see the Nativity scene as a beacon of hope rather than the radical place of rebellion that it truly was and still is?

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A Palestinian Protester Dressed as Santa 2014

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One of my favorite reenactments of the Nativity takes place in the movie The Bells of St. Mary starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman (*you can watch a clip of it below). It was released in 1945, only months after the end of WW2 when racial tension in America was felt worldwide. Yet soldiers returned, heralded but segregated, and Christmas was celebrated in earnest as if Jim Crow was non-existent and Japanese interment camps a figment of our imaginations. 

I’m not at all suggesting that we continue our country’s practice of conveniently forgetting. Certainly not. But I’m wondering if we’re capable of a embracing a Christmas story that is beautiful simply because its backstory is as bloody and violent as Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, and its setting is as foreboding as the crucifixes that Romans purposely planted roadside and hillside to remind everyone who were the haves and who were the have-nots. 

I’m wondering if there could be a pink Christmas tree for all of us – some version of a version of a rainbow, unicorn, drag queen that’s perfect simply because it’s not supposed to exist. I hope so.

Jesus seemed to think so when he sat down on a hill and rang out a carol of blessings: Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those that mourn… blessed are the meek… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the pure in heart… blessed are the peacemakers… blessed are the persecuted. 

Jesus could’ve demanded they rise up and demand justice and liberty. On a hilltop in an occupied land, that’s exactly what his listeners were expecting and waiting for and counting on from a Messiah.

Jesus wasn’t put to death for staging a sit-in or leading a protest or storming the city gates. He was put to death for doing the opposite of all that, the opposite of what was expected of him. He was put to death for trimming up a proverbial pink-unicorn-drag-queen Christmas tree and inviting anyone—be they a zealot, a beggar, a prostitute, a saint or a sinner—to come, sit down, rest with him, and be blessed. 

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President of Rabbis for Human Rights Lights Hannukah Candles On the Ruins of a Demolished Home in the Village of Dirat in the Southern West Bank 2014

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BEATITUDES FOR THE HAVE-NOTS

by Marcie Alvis Walker | Black Eyed Stories

Blessed are The Have-Nots, each and every blessing of Heaven—the sunshine, the stars bright, this good earth—were made for them, belong to them, and will not abandon them. 

Blessed are The Expelled & Displaced, may they be restored and sheltered with words of welcome. 

Blessed are The War-Torn, may they know serenity. 

Blessed are The Bombed & Hollowed Out, may they be recovered – their names and stories documented and made whole.

Blessed are The Shell-Shocked, may they be offered solace and dignity wrapped in strong arms, kind words, and shared humanity.  

Blessed are The Threatened, Harassed & Bullied Into Silence, may they find their courage to speak – may their voices roar. 

Blessed are The Unjustly Vilified, may they be exonerated - their stories believed and returned to them – may they be trusted to decide when, where, and how to tell their own stories. 

Blessed are The Walled-In & The Walled Out, may they know that everywhere belongs to them – may their children and their children’s children roam free upon an open, unbounded and borderless earth. 

You are blessed when you are overwhelmed, weak and left wordless and breathless when your calls for love, justice, peace and freedom are shunned, when your earnest questions are dismissed and made small. Take a deep breath and exhale, go and rest. You are not the first to feel misunderstood, censored and erased. You are not the first to have your truth undone by fear and ignorance. Many have already walked this path. Like them, your truth will not be extinguished. Your testimony will not be diminished. Know that your earnest striving will widen the path. Your have-nots will flourish and multiply. 

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The Bells of St. Mary’s Nativity Play 

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