Okay, maybe I’m getting soupy and sentimental at Christmastime. (It’s a weakness I have.) I’d agree we cannot wish away the deep and fundamental conflicts of this moment or the need to battle for democratic values. But if we can’t ponder a different sort of world and a different way of dealing with each other at this time of year, when will we?
Thus my two Christmas wishes: that we remember how transformative the first Christmas was to understandings of the divine; and that we try for at least a day (or a week, maybe?) to follow the advice of my historian friend James T. Kloppenberg. Channeling St. Paul, he wrote that democracy’s health depends on our ability “to see through one another’s eyes, to think with one another’s minds, and to treat each other with charity.” We might even get used to it.