Standards disclaimers apply. Possibly offensive to just about everyone. There are references to events in Spare Parts, Vow of Silence, and Brother's Keeper.
Happy Merry Sameach
by Helen W.
December, 1996
Phone bill. That went into Jim's pile.
Electric bill. Jim's pile.
Credit card bill for Jim. Card for Jim. Another card for Jim.
Card for - ugh, Caroline. Blair paused and slipped that one next to the cordless phone's base station; he'd take care of forwarding it tomorrow, after he turned in the grades for his sections.
Card for 'Det. and Mrs. James Ellison.' Someone out of the loop, probably a relative of Jim's; Blair put it in Jim's pile.
And... a card from Naomi. Almost a week after the last day of Chanukah. How thoughtful. Well, Jim could put it with the others if he felt like it.
Blair barely looked up from the stack of term papers he was grading when Jim came home a short while later. At Jim's, "Hey, the one on top's for you," Blair shrugged. "Do whatever you want with it," he said. "Naomi's cards are..." and he paused, searching for the right word. He wasn't in the habit of criticizing his mother to others, and the whole thing would probably seem silly to Jim anyway. "Inappropriate."
"As in, naked wise men?"
"Wise men period," Blair said. "Quotes from Luke. Or from the King James Version of the Christian Bible's Old Testament."
"Isn't the Old Testament the same as the Torah?" asked Jim, slitting open the card.
"It is and it isn't," said Blair. "I really don't have time for a theological discussion right now. I've got to get these papers graded by 3 p.m. tomorrow."
"So I'll pencil one into my calendar," said Jim.
A moment later, he dropped the card, spread open, into Blair's lap. "I really think you should read this, Chief."
"Maybe later..." but there was no way Blair's eyes wouldn't take in his own mother's handwriting when it was inches from his face. Below the printed message - 'Peace on Earth, Good Will to All' - she'd written, 'I know you hate this sort of card, darling, but you should embrace the parts of you which come from Chris as well as from my heritage.'
Chris. Chris? Chris NIELSEN????
"Who the hell is Chris?" Jim had sat down on the sofa on the other side of the stack of papers Blair'd already graded. Jim's weight shifted them, making them slide around; Blair moved the pile to the coffee table, carefully segregating them from those he had yet to read through.
"Um... I think Naomi's trying to tell me something here."
"Or she assumes you've always known."
"Yeah. Maybe."
"So who's Chris?"
Blair rubbed his hands on his legs of his pants. "Uh. Yeah. Chris. I guess there is only one guy it could be. I thought they were just friends. We used to see him every couple of years. Tall, blond guy. Uh, not Jewish."
"So I gathered," said Jim. "But a good guy?"
"Yeah, I, I guess."
"And it doesn't really matter that he's not Jewish, right? That comes from Naomi."
"Yeah, of course."
"And isn't Leary an Irish name? It's not like you've been assuming your father's Jewish, right?"
"Uhhh... I never really believed the Tim Leary theory," said Blair. "I don't know what I really thought. Not Chris, that's for sure."
"Because?"
"Because he's this six-foot-two Swedish guy!"
"So if he were shorter..."
"Oh, forget it!" Blair jumped off the sofa and walked over to the fireplace, then back. "Let me see the card," he said.
At least the card's picture was abstract. No nativity scene or anything. "This is just a hell of a way of letting me know, you know?"
Still seated, Jim nodded. "You going to call her?"
"I've no idea where she is," said Blair.
The phone rang. Both men stared at the handset on the coffee table for a moment; it flashed through Blair's mind that this had to be Naomi, telling him it was some sort of odd joke, some Solstice ritual he didn't know about. On the second ring, Jim answered.
After it became obvious that the call was for Jim, Blair tuned his roommate out and stared at Naomi's writing. Was this her casual script, or had she put a lot of thought into the words she'd chosen? Had she expected him to already know who Christopher Nielsen was to him?
"No, just come on up, we're just hanging out, getting over the shock of finding out that Blair is half Christian," Jim said into the phone.
"What! Who is that?" Blair exclaimed; Jim was holding the handset away from his ear a few inches, getting an indistinct roar from the receiver.
"Just Simon," said Jim, looking a little sheepish. "He informs me there's no such thing as being 'half Christian.'"
Another rumble from the phone. "I'm sorry, sir; I'll never precede your name with the word 'just' again," Jim said into the handset. He glanced back at Blair, then said, "Yes, sir. See you all in a minute."
"What the..." Blair started.
"Simon wants to borrow our guest parking permit. Him and some of the other guys are heading over to something at St. Stephens and they're not finding anything open further up on Prospect."
Not an unusual request, from Blair's friends. In fact, it was a common joke that Blair had moved onto Prospect St. to get himself a coveted downtown residential parking permit. Resident-only parking rules weren't usually an issue for guys from the station, though. "And he's afraid of a ticket why?"
"Simon's not; Joel's driving."
Which explained everything.
Blair exhaled a sigh. "Amusing as my life may be... could you hold off on telling the guys about - you know - until I get a handle on things?"
"Sure, sorry Chief," said Jim. "You just seem so put-out at being half - I-don't- know, generic white guy, I guess. You know, what I am. It ain't so bad."
"It's more complicated than that," said Blair, wondering how to explain it. Wondering if Jim could get what he was trying to say, no matter what words he used. "I mean, it's not like I don't appreciate some of the more spiritual aspects of Christianity. Like, I really dig St. Sebastians..."
Jim, looking like he wanted to get out of the conversation anyway, grabbed the guest permit from its place in the kitchen and headed to the door. "I'll just run this downstairs, save Simon a few minutes."
A moment later, Jim was back - followed by Joel, Simon, and Henri Brown. "Umm... seems like you're in for Christianity 101," Jim said, looking sheepish.
"Great!" said Blair, clenching his fists, not caring that he was bending Naomi's card. "What, now I'm going to get, what, you pushing your religion on me?"
Simon grinned. "Evangelizing? We going to be doing any evangelizing, Joel?"
"No way," said Joel. "That's H's department."
"And he knows how much that annoys his supervisor," said Simon, "so he's not going to do any of that here, right?"
"Right," said Henri. "I just came up to give a third point of view."
"Point of view?" Jim sounded as annoyed as Blair felt.
"You can't say someone is 'half Christian' to a guy in an automobile heading to an ecumenical Christmas service without getting a little attention," said Simon. "So why don't we make ourselves comfortable and you two start at the top."
"Won't you be missing your service?" asked Jim.
"It's not for a while yet," said Joel. "We were planning to grab a bite beforehand, but decided to wait 'til after. If we can straighten some things out for you, that's really more important."
"And anyway, I'm just going so I can be seen going," said Simon.
"And I'm only going because I thought there should actually be a Christian there," said Henri.
Simon and Joel nodded, looking amused.
"So," said Joel. "What's up?"
Blair could never maintain annoyance with Joel for more than a few seconds. It occurred to him that he actually wouldn't mind cornering the man some time to bounce things off of him.
Simon, Henri, and Jim were a different matter entirely. But as their trio of visitors made themselves comfortable in their living area and Jim set about retrieving beers from the refrigerator and starting a pot of coffee, Blair realized his choices boiled down to out-and-out refusing to deal with them, or playing along.
"If I were an employee of the PD, I could have you up on charges," he said, pulling over a chair from the dining area since the freakin' Sunday School brigade was now occupying all the comfy seats.
"I know," said Simon, smiling evilly.
"So here's the evidence, captain," said Blair, handing over the now-somewhat-mangled card.
Simon read it, then looked up. "This is it?"
"Yeah."
Jim, passing out drinks, said, "Naomi has never exactly been explicit about who Mr. Sandburg is."
"Mr. Sandburg is Naomi's father," snapped Blair.
"Do you know who she's talking about?" Simon asked.
"Yeah."
"And..."
"And I never suspected it was him."
"Not even a little?" added Joel.
"Well..." Blair rolled his eyes. He was about to sound really stupid. "Naomi and Chris tried to get me to call him 'Dad.'"
"And that didn't tip you off?" asked Jim.
"I've never called Naomi anything except Naomi. Why should I suspect some guy's my father just because he prefers 'Dad' to 'Chris'?"
Everyone was staring at him now.
"Son, you've passed your general exam already, right?" Joel asked gently.
"Yes!" said Blair. "Okay, so maybe I didn't think this all through before, okay? I mean, how could a guy named 'Chris' be my father? There are no Jews named 'Chris'!"
"Wasn't Christopher Columbus Jewish?" asked Henri.
"What about Christiana Levinson on the 4th floor?" asked Simon.
"Don't know about Columbus," said Joel. "Christiana's maiden name is Jones. I think she's a practicing Buddhist."
"What about Chrys Feldman?" asked Jim.
"Short for Crystal," said Blair.
"I'm sure I went to college with a Jewish guy named Chris," said Jim. "He was a Deke."
"I think that proves my point," said Blair.
"Anyway," said Simon, "What we wanted to make sure you understood is that being a Christian isn't something you can be half of. You either are one or you aren't, and the decision is entirely yours."
Henri was looking at the card now. "What does she mean, you hate 'this sort of card.' You don't like Christmas cards?"
How to put this, without offending everyone? "I think it's great when people celebrate the significant rituals of their cultures," Blair said. "But Christmas is so ubiquitous, and there's this general assumption that everyone celebrates it. And that saying 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' somehow makes it okay."
"Hold on a minute, Chief," said Jim. "There's a picture of you in Hargrove wearing a Santa hat."
"Where?"
"Some office door on the second floor."
Blair groaned. "Mai still has that up? That was at the Chick Palace Yule Bash two years ago."
"Chick Palace?" Jim looked incredulous.
"Yeah. Mai, Indrani, and Raha's place. Hey, they call it that themselves!"
"And that, of course, makes it alright," said Joel.
Henri chuckled. "Sounds like an interesting apartment."
"Yeah. Let's just say their Yule parties are pretty secular. Anyway, liking a good party doesn't mean I want to spend December celebrating a Christian holiday."
"Well, if it's any comfort, neither do I," said Joel. "What's in the malls and on the radio - that has nothing to do with the Christmas I celebrate."
"I have a different take, you could say," said Henri. "Truth is, most folks around here are Christian, and it's natural that 'the culture', as Blair might say, is going to reflect that."
Jim looked puzzled. "A few minutes ago, you implied that true-blue Christians are few and far between."
Simon chuckled. "He's got you there, brother."
Henri shrugged. "Guess I should have paid more attention to the sermon last week. It was all laid out."
Blair looked around at their guests. "So do you all go to the same church?"
"Hell, no!" said Henri, looking somewhat horrified.
"Henri goes to the Broadway Bible Evangelical Word of Christ Church," said Joel. "The One True Church in Cascade."
"We took that off our sign YEARS ago!" protested Henri.
"But they still make new members get rebaptized."
"Well, it never hurts to make sure."
"Whereas I am an exhorter at North Cascade AME," said Joel.
"And you, Simon?" asked Blair.
"I'm, uh, between churches," he replied.
"Joan got the house AND the church," said Henri.
"And her pick of the CDs," said Simon. His face belied his attempt at levity, though. "This time of year, I wish I could renegotiate."
"Still actively looking?" asked Joel.
"Shopping a bit. I've visited all the other National Baptist churches around, but nothing's clicked. And I was thinking of doing a little investing in this thoroughbred..."
"Yeah, better decide what you are going to do vis-a-vis the ponies first!" laughed Henri.
"What's an A-M-E?" asked Blair.
"Ah, here we go! Christianity 101!" said Joel.
"More like accounting," said Henri.
"No, this stuff is important", said Joel. "You can't really understand Christianity unless you really get that there are a bunch of different flavors and each has its own take on things. I mean, the three of us here - three black men - all have worshipped in traditionally African American churches our entire lives. All of our denominations have a somewhat evangelical thrust. And yet, our takes on what it means to be a righteous person of faith are completely different.
"H there, like we've been teasing him, belongs to what you might call an evangelical congregation, but I wouldn't come near to saying it's fundamentalist. Simon's old church was pretty fundamentalist, for a National Baptist congregation, but Simon himself isn't. And my congregation has never met an ecumenical organization it didn't embrace."
"Correction," said Henri. "I grew up National Baptist like Simon, but Broadway Bible is completely different, completely integrated. We have blacks, whites, Latinos, lots of second-generation Asians..."
"Yes, I sit corrected," said Joel. "That's something churches like his do pretty well. Since they are new, they aren't weighed down with the baggage your more mainstream denominations are."
"Umm..." said Jim. "I grew up a Catholic and I'm barely following you. I thought Evangelical meant fundamentalist?"
"Not really," said Joel. "Fundamentalists believe that the bible is infallible, which is patently ridiculous if you ask me. Evangelical means there's an emphasis on spreading the word, bringing others to Christ."
"But don't Christians have to do that, by definition?" asked Blair. "Lest us sinners burn in hell?"
"Absolutely," said Henri. "I don't see how anyone can call themselves a Christian who doesn't believe that man, by his very nature, is sinful, and needing forgiveness. And that that forgiveness comes from God, through Christ, and you have to accept this to be made clean enough for God's sight."
"That sounds pretty much like what I was taught," said Jim. "But it was all very institutionalized. Say this, do this, and you're all set."
Joel nodded. "There's a big range in how much ritual surrounds everything to do with Christianity. I like the ritual, myself; I'm always pushing for more of it."
"We have very little ritual," said Henri. "We get a lot of people who have left the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, even some black churches like I did, because it meant nothing to them. We try to root what we do in the words of Christ. Where my church breaks with what you might consider fundamentalist, though, is, we realize that, to preach the word, you have to meet people where they are, not bore them with bible stories."
"Which is something Christianity has always done," said Joel. "Look at how much of what we consider part of Christmas - probably the parts that bug Blair the most - comes straight from Roman celebrations and European pagan solstice rites."
"I guess my heresy is, I don't particularly believe in hell," said Simon. "So it's hard for me to get into evangelizing."
"I do, but I don't think it's for me to decide what anyone else has to believe," said Joel. "But the minister at our sister congregation, the United Methodist church that abuts us, holds that Jesus died for everyone's sins and that that was enough, no second births required. I personally think that that's a little patronizing, but it's a doctrine that's out there."
"In more ways than one," said Henri.
"I'm surprised that you're so religious, H" said Blair. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I never would have guessed."
"Well, you know, work hard, play hard, pray hard..."
"And God does love a repentant sinner!" chimed in Simon, making his voice sound like a late-night televangelist.
"What about you, Jim? Want to jump in about anything?" Joel asked.
Jim shook his head. "I haven't been to mass in years. Got married in the Church because Caroline wanted to; I guess I can't do that again."
"Well, this is all great," said Blair, "but I still don't understand why you all had to come up, if you aren't just trying to welcome me to the fold."
"Well, in a way, we are," said Joel. "Not that we knowing anything about this guy's religion, of course."
"I remember... yeah, I remember going to church with him a couple of times," said Blair.
"What sort of church?" asked Simon.
"A white one."
Simon, Joel, and Henri groaned in unison. "No, no, I mean, the building was white!" Blair protested. "That's all I remember."
"Well, that's a help," said Simon.
"You know, you might want to bring this up with your rabbi," said Joel. "He might have a take on this you haven't thought of."
"I don't actually know any rabbis," said Blair. "At least, not locally."
"What?!" Joel looked truly amazed. "I've got three on speed-dial."
"What are you doing with three rabbis on speed-dial?" asked Jim.
"One's at the conservative synagogue we split the hamburger stand with on Cascade Day weekend. We take Friday night and Saturday to sundown, they cover late Saturday and all day Sunday. One's with the reform congregation that our kids visit during their confirmation process. And Janet's just a family friend. My younger daughter watches her kids every Wednesday night, so I call her number pretty often to see how Rose is doing with Rachel and Ben."
Blair laughed. "Okay, but do you have any native spiritual leaders on speed-dial? I bet I have you beat there!"
While Joel looked like he was considering this, Jim asked softly, "I hope you don't think I've overdone the Christmas thing here. By putting the cards up." He gestured to where a handful of cards were adding some color to the counter dividing the kitchen from the dining area.
"Huh? No, not at all, man," said Blair. "I'd have let you know if you did."
"Great," said Jim. "Usually, I put up some lights in the winter, just to brighten things up a little."
"Yeah, that string of chili peppers," said Henri. "I knew the place was missing something."
"See, you're doing it, H!" Blair almost shouted. "Embrace Christmas, or you'll ruin poor Jim's fun! Isn't it enough that you guys have got the white house, congress, and the Supreme Court?"
"And you've got Hollywood and..." Henri started.
"Enough!" said Simon. "This isn't what we came here for."
"Joel, got any Imams on speed dial we could toss into the mix?" Jim asked.
"Well, as a matter of fact..."
"Okay, guys," said Simon, rising. "I gotta get down to that service, be seen."
"Which is..." started Blair.
"Which is a fact of my life as a man in my position," said Simon.
"You could protest, make a stand."
"I could, but I won't."
Joel and Henri followed Simon's lead, Joel pausing to say, "If you'd like me to introduce you to one of my rabbi friends, let me know, okay?"
"Uh, sure."
"And, I know it's late for this," said Joel, "but Chanukah Sameach!"
As the door shut behind them, Blair plopped back onto the sofa. "That was a colossal waste of time," he said.
Jim grunted noncommittally and took control of his easy chair. "Why don't you know any rabbis?" he asked.
"I'm not that kind of a Jew," said Blair.
"Have you ever been?"
"You know Naomi... she did some new-agey stuff around solstices, mostly. I pretty much tuned it out.
"I tried to be observant for a little while, though. When I was almost twelve, I decided I really wanted a bar mitzvah, so Naomi looked around, found a synagogue that would take me on. It even waived my tuition. For about a year, I worked my tail off, catching up with all these kids who'd been learning doctrine and studying Hebrew since early grade school. And, I did it - stood in front of everyone and read the Torah, gave my talk. Even had a pretty good party afterwards, thanks to my grandparents. But then we moved, and that was pretty much that."
"Would you consider getting back into it now?"
Blair shrugged. "Maybe."
"Well," said Jim, "if you ever want to look around some, see what's out there, I'd keep you company if you'd like."
"Really? You'd do that?"
"If I'm allowed in the door, sure," said Jim.
"Thanks," said Blair. "But why?"
"Curiosity," said Jim. "And, it's funny, listening to the guys talk just now... it really struck me that their churches are a big part of their lives, and that Simon's missing having one of his own. Now, I ran from mine as fast and as hard as I could the second I realized I could get away with it, but maybe religion doesn't have to be boring, or some sort of social club, or an excuse to be a judgmental hypocrite. Maybe you'd get something out of it."
Blair did laugh now. "I see you've got your issues there, Jim!"
Jim sighed. "Nothing too unusual, I guess."
"Okay," Blair said, "the next Friday night neither of us have plans, I'll ask Joel for a recommendation, since he seems to be the local expert."
"Sounds like a plan."
"Oh, and Jim - go ahead and put up your lights if you'd like."
THE END
Any and all comments appreciated, here or to helenw at murphnet dot org.