No one is coming
to save us
(Amen)

We have been
taught
to be owed something
greater than

Expecting unopened gifts
labeled
with our name, only
awaiting presents underneath
made to see
worth
as contingency

something earned
in line of work
where Good and Bad lists
tally, accumulate
and if we don’t
feel validated
we plead, pick me
grasping at leaves
telling stories, you won't believe
what happened to me
on Christmas morning

always
let down, it seems
by the Other Guy
pointing a finger, out
raged
over something we believed
or wanted to see

we knew the truth
had been misplaced
but it felt easier
to look away
to keep singing in practiced refrain
head down, until things
turn around
you know
San-ta Claus
is com-ing to-town

Back of the Page

It’s eye opening, waking up on the other side
of a Great Lie.

Realizing
you perpetuated it, by default
seemingly
for the “Greater Good”

No one wants to be known
for pulling back the curtain
on Santa Claus, do they?

…

I wonder
what hats we’re all wearing, now?

The other night I was discussing the Supreme Court rulings - the latest in a string of things that happened to us, against our will. A feeling of entitlement swept over me.

What changed in 2016, when Trump got elected, and these feelings of helplessness started showing up for me? Was I a suburban kid on Christmas morning wondering where my presents went? Am I just in the latest stage of this feeling of disenfranchisement, shielded from so much of what the country (and World) has felt for generations?

The selective outrage I’ve felt is but a taste of what people who have been marginalized, brutalized, and discriminated against feel, and face every day. Each development feels more like curtain dropping on an open lie that we were perpetuating (or tolerating) rather than some shocking regression. If we look deeper, it was already the case that Presidents were Immune in the system’s eyes, underneath our compartmentalization.

People that enjoy privilege have a problem with boundaries (or Red Lines). Each time they get crossed, we tend to stay put and compartmentalize, lash out in vocal outrage, and adjust our rationalizations so we can continue to operate. We defer to entitlement and the comfort we enjoy, and lament the failings of Those in Power, over there.

Well, no one is coming to save us, now (Amen) is a realization. We can’t keep appealing to compartmentalization, rationalization, or faith in exploitative corrupt systems. We can’t keep perpetuating the entitlement myth of gifts on Christmas morning, granted by an omniscient being who sees and knows everything you do. This poem isn’t meant to ruin Christmas for those who celebrate it, but it was an analogy that landed for me, based on my life experience of privilege in having Christmas mornings with presents labeled only for me, and tapping into that feeling of entitlement (”of course the presents will be there, and Santa will place them there, for me”). I’ve never been on the Bad List. One morning, you wake up and realize what was involved to hold up that story, and you’re given a choice: are you going to wear the hat? and who was on the Bad List, or got nothing, anyway? I remember volunteering at the local community center in High School, wrapping presents for them, but I never met them face-to-face. They were somewhere else, recipients of charity. A first taste of playing Santa Claus, on high. Benevolence at a safe distance. It makes me sad, to know I missed the deeper meaning. But there is more to the story, now…

I wonder how that applies to all the other stories we choose to uphold together, and what hats we’re all wearing now? What are we going to stop and start doing, today?

🌲

“What's to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

“To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.”

“It's Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!”

“Hallo!” returned the boy.

- "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens