Horsley on Christmas

At Christmas we meet ourselves as we really are. That's why it's so hard to bear for the depressed. The day glows like a fire through dimpled cottage windows in an unforgiving season. But for those who can only peep through the curtains, for those who will never be invited in, it only opens even wider that empty gulf of yearning between other people's happiness and your own cold despair.


What about those on the inside? What about those who descend into the bunker of the family? It shouldn't take Christmas for us to recognise that Santa Claus definitely had the right idea. Only visit people once a year and make sure, while you are at it, that you don't actually meet them.


But aren't we forgetting the true meaning of this day: a joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus? Isn't it strange how the whole world observes Christ's birthday while absolutely nobody observes his beliefs.


Jesus was a great and radical philosopher. Here was a truly autonomous mind; here was someone who was prepared to do his own thinking, no matter what the price. A Jewish thinker enrolling in the school of the Greek cynics, he drew on traditions of outspokenness, shamelessness and unconventionality. He spoke of anarchy, anti-materialism and identification with the poor.


His message, quite simply, was that family and personal property must go. Only then could we have peace on earth and goodwill to all men. So we celebrate Christ's birthday by gathering our families together and stockpiling mountains of possessions to wage war on one another over TV schedules and who will clear up.


Gentle Jesus, meek and mild? No one made more trouble than this baby. The ass-like cult of Christianity that stands around his manger is the antithesis of the man. Christ was an anti-Christ. He was a true radical.