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Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea
A few years ago, on the occasion of her receiving the National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Foundation, the acclaimed writer Annie Proulx offered what came to be described after as a “State of the World” address.
Proulx began her remarks by lamenting current conditions, pointing out “repetitive murders by gunmen filled with rage,” “flickering threats of nuclear war,” “a population dividing into bitter, tribal cultures,” “the accelerating destruction of the natural world.”
With the tone of that opening, I wouldn’t be surprised if the leaders of the foundation had soon started shifting uncomfortably in their seats as their hopes for a celebratory day started slipping away.
But instead, it was Proulx’s address that soon did the shifting.
“Yet somehow,” she continued, “Old values and longings persist. We still have tender feelings for such notions as truth, respect for others, honor, justice, and sharing. We still hope for a happy ending. The happy ending still beckons, and it is in the hope of grasping it that we go on.”
We won’t find it anywhere in the Bible, and I would never remotely imply that a writer of Proulx’s rare abilities plagiarized them, but in my mind, heart and imagination, I have heard that “State of the World” address before.
From God …
We don’t get those exact words from God in the Bible, but what Proulx expresses is the exact message of Christmas. At Christmas, God, while lamenting the state of the world as it was, still had tender feelings for notions like truth, honor, justice and sharing. God still held hope for a happy ending. So God sent Jesus into the world as both the embodiment of those notions, and as inspiration for humanity to believe in and grasp for that happy ending.
For those of us in the Christian spiritual tradition then, it seems fitting that the beginning of each New Year so closely follows Christmas. As the start of each New Year tends to be a time when we resolve to live in better ways, it is also an opportunity to once again commit to the happy ending that God’s “State of the World” address at Christmas reminds us is possible through the example and inspiration of Jesus.
The Rev. Dr. Mark Boyea is senior minister at the Sanibel Congregational United Church of Christ.
