Con Passion

I was eight, I remember. We were late, as usual. It's the Puerto Rican way, to be late. Our concept of time is a bit fluid.My uncle married a woman from Colorado who is very, very American. My mom says that when their son was baptized, they had a party at their house, and my grandmother was supposed to cook for them. So my American aunt asks her to get to the house at 2:30, so she could cook for the party which started at 3:00. My grandmother showed up on time - Puerto Rican style. By the time she got there, at around 3:30, all of the people my aunt had invited had already arrived. You know in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when Ian Miller's family shows up at the Porticullis house with a bundt cake? The culture shock for my aunt, when she married into the Acosta family, was probably about the same.

So my family was late, even though it was

midnight mass on

Christmas Eve and we'd had hours of nothingness and relaxation before arriving to slip on our Christmas best. And everybody was sort of pissed off at each other, too, because we'd lived in Texas long enough to understand that being late to church is just a little bit unacceptable. It was smashing the Puerto Rican right out of us, this place was.

My dad was driving. It's his job to drive when we're late, because he isn't afraid to speed and honk at

people who get in his way. It's my mom's job to sit next to him and backseat drive and nag about how he's being dangerous. My little sister and I help her out, nowadays, now that we both know how to drive and actually understand how ridiculous his stressed out chauffeuring really is. But back then, we just sat in the back and occasionally yelped when a sharp turn was made or we had a near miss with another car, accents to the shrill exclamations my mother would make, often followed by an angry "CAN YOU GUYS JUST LET ME DRIVE" from the only male in the family. Poor guy. As if making him watch Legally Blonde 15 times wasn't enough, we had to further insult him by criticizing his driving. Sometimes I wonder how he survived...

We walked into the church frazzled, cold, and, courtesy of some almost-accidents in the parking lot, full of adrenaline. There were no seats left, so we stood in the back, alternately warm and cold with the opening and closing door behind us as the few people later than us straggled in. But I remember, for some reason, SO CLEARLY what it felt like to walk into church that Christmas. The woosh of sucked in air as we stepped into the warm doorway, and the soft, glowing light, that seemd to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, and the beauty of the altar, wreathed in light, and the way that at first, all I could hear was a soft humming, and the way that humming turned into strong, passionate voices of ordinary people, together a little after midnight on Christmas Eve, celebrating the birth of Mary's "firstborn son... wrapped... in swaddling clothes... [lying]... in a manger" (anthology, 27).

I think that I remember this Christmas most clearly of all because it was the first Christmas that I listened, REALLY listened, to the story. I knew the story, of course. Years of Sunday School had seen to that. Whenever we would go see the nativity scene acted out, I vaguely recall looking at whatever baby was playing Jesus and being

1. scared that "Mary", usually a 12 year old, quivery voiced girl, was going to drop him, and

2. surprised at the amount of responsibility they were putting on such a little boy at such a young age. I mean, this kid probably didn't even know it, but he was being asked to act as Jesus. Not just any baby boy. JESUS! The guy who, in Luke, touched a dead man who promptly "sat up and began to speak" (anthology, 130). The guy who himself proclaimed he "is the light of the world" (John 8:12), who God gave to us so that "everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16). Kind of alot of pressure, right?

So the story was familiar. But this Christmas, huddled next to my sister. squashed between her and the cold, stone wall of the church, peering through my curtain of hair at the altar and the crucifix above it, the story seemed different. It was beautiful. It was a miracle! When the petite, snowy-haired woman reading that night said "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (anthology, 128), I swear my heart hurt, and my little eight year old hands tingled, and I wanted...

I wanted to fix the world.

~*~~*~~*~~*~

I feel like nowadays, especially the US, everything is very fast paced. Think about my family's drive up to the church. Today, we're so concerned about the proper, about the on-time, about the social norms. No one has to time to think. And at Christmas, when the Christmas spirit is supposed to fill you so that compassion pours out of you, I see people giving more out of duty than out of compassion, absentmindedly dumping coins into collection buckets so that they can get on their way already.

But Christmas comes from Christianity, right? It's Jesus' birthday. So the Christmas spirit really refers to the spirit of Jesus, which the bible hints is the spirit of love, the spirit of compassion, the spirit of charity. NOT the spirit of duty.

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of Jesus.

The bible defines charity very strictly. In recent times, we've obviously widened the definition of charity. If I go to dictionary.com and look it up, it's defined as "generous actions to aid the poor, ill, or helpless." That's not what Christianity says it is. It actually says that "though I bestow all my good to feed the poor... and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing" (anthology, 133). The bible, with this line, basically rebukes outright the modern concept of charity. It goes on to define charity, mostly by what is ISN'T.

So once I take all of this into account, what am I left with?

I think that charity is compassion. It's a bit confusing, to define one by the other, but here's how I see it:

Lets take a do a fake analysis for the word compassion. In spanish, con can mean with. So compassion, in spanish, would mean something like "with passion." Therefore, in my book, and hopefully I'm hoping in Christianity's book too, charity means something like "COMPASSIONATE, generous actions to aid the poor, ill, or helpless."

I'm a little bit obsessed with being passionate about what you're involved with, almost to an unhealthy point. It was the subject of all of my college essays, is the reason I still volunteer with the kids at El Buen Samaritano, and is probably one of the main reasons I got a C in geometry, as studying for something I didn't care about when I could be reading my history book instead. which I LOVED, seemed almost unbearable. You'll hear me say it sometimes, blundtly.

"I really just don't care that much."

This doesn't mean I'm not thankful that society has moved forward to the point that charity, if not compassion, is something that's expected rather than simply encouraged. I know that this has been a huge help to many. But it feels fake. It's not christian charity. It's not compassion. It's just societal norms. It's not me, eight years old, late for Jesus' birthday party and wanting to save the world. It's more my family, driving like maniacs to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, afraid we'll offend someone with our Puerto Rican concept of time.

Images (in order)

http://www.toxel.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/uclocks8.jpg

http://www.sspx.org/Chapels_Pages/chapel_pages_images/kansas_city_xmas_midnight_mass_550x372.jpg

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dpa0269l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/B/Backseat_drivers.asp&usg=__iOoFtOrbuS3SDmRpUixhhNj0F78=&h=400&w=303&sz=38&hl=en&start=1&sig2=TjH3YVicMQJOoL1dTwofTg&itbs=1&tbnid=mwhiOHXZ32FSiM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=94&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbackseat%2Bdriving%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=CW-AS8qqMYaVtgfhpLH4BA

http://www.healthtalktoday.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/christmas-nativity-scene.jpg

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=3&q=donation+buckets+at+christmas&btnG=Search+images

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SQojUtSqQyvGY5QHNV_u1-6orZ6LzXqsnwlfoPHFcE3mU4_qsSUlQm3F1gzibGcI1HQq6mg3FhPp9sU47Tt61MgScSl-71zIx5DYd5UqircnLj7rddUQNwSq0sVPfdxC9ffLFhsG0_E/s400/jesus.jpg