SALT LAKE CITY — A U.S. congressman announced his retirement this month, saying that the impeachment drama that has consumed the nation this year has “rendered my soul weary.”
In saying that, Rep. Denny Heck represented not just Washington state but the entirety of the nation.
As the House hearings groaned to a stop Dec. 18 with predictable results (no Republican voted for impeachment), there was no sense of relief and little evidence that anyone’s mind had changed. The only startling news about it was Christianity Today’s editorial calling for President Donald Trump’s removal.
With a Senate trial next on the docket, a sort of numbness has enveloped the country, causing one talk show host to say, obscenely, that a “nice school shooting” would be preferable to more impeachment coverage.
Chuck Bonniwell, of KNUS-AM in Denver, was fired. Many political analysts say Trump likely won’t be, given the makeup of the U.S. Senate, meaning the polarization and the sniping will go on, at least until next November, maybe four more Novembers.
Even the Democrats who want to unseat the president seem to be losing oxygen with every debate. Six million people watched Thursday’s debate, the fewest this election cycle. For perspective, three times as many people watched the Buffalo Bills beat the Pittsburgh Steelers the Sunday before.
Football can still hold our interest as the Super Bowl draws near, but of impeachment and politics, we are soul-weary, as the congressman said.
Fortunately, there’s a break ahead.
It’s a break given to us, not by the U.S. Congress, or even the president (who tweets even on Christmas) but by Christianity, the world’s most prevalent religion.
Although most religious scholars agree that Jesus wasn’t born in December, Christians have observed his birth on the 25th of the month since the fourth century, when the Roman emperor Constantine the Great settled on that date. And history shows that the observance hasn’t been all peace and good will; as historian Stephen Nissenbaum wrote in his book “The Battle For Christmas,” the Puritans made the celebration of Christmas illegal between 1659 and 1681 in Massachusetts.
There’s plenty to battle over still: from protest Nativity scenes to whether it’s OK to wish a stranger “Merry Christmas.” (President Trump weighed in on that the latter issue this week, throwing a “Merry Christmas Rally” in Michigan the night he was impeached.)
But despite all the arguing and fuss, despite shrinking membership in churches and the rise of the religious “nones,” Christmas Day itself remains a shining testament to the infant at the humble center of the holiday.
While many stores open on Thanksgiving and Easter these days, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a place to shop for last-minute gifts on Dec. 25, outside of convenience stores, Starbucks and the rare McDonald’s.
Government offices, of course, will be shuttered. And President Trump surprised federal workers last week by announcing that they would receive Christmas Eve off, too, with pay.
There are a few restaurants open, and movie theaters, too, and airplanes and buses and Lyft drivers must make their merry rounds, and may they take home extra big tips. Hospitals and fire departments and police stations stay open in service of the public.
But elsewhere, from late Christmas Eve throughout Christmas Day, a sort of stillness settles over the country, as was said to have happened in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. And once the stores close, and the shoppers have either finished or given up, there is a geniality that replaces the crazed rush of the previous days.
The great Christian writer C.S. Lewis, no fan of the commercial side of Christmas, once wrote, after a Christmas Eve gathering, how tender the world seemed to be:
“Taking it all in all, with the walk and the evening, and the blessed sense of charity, so rare in me — the feeling, natural at such a moment that even my worst enemies in college were really funny and odd rather than detestable, while my friends were ‘the many men so beautiful’ — this was as good a day as I could wish to have,” Lewis later wrote to a friend.
That “blessed sense of charity” isn’t an illusion conjured by a pleasant evening with friends; in fact, research has shown that giving to others creates happiness in ourselves. Christmas, in many ways, primes us for happiness, and for being the best version of ourselves, for at least one blessed day.
This is a gift of Christmas, to believers and nonbelievers alike. The day remains a quiet, still oasis in a world that refuses to slow down for anything else. It is the ultimate antidote for souls rendered weary.