Of angels, wise men and shepherds

Bill Knight column for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, Dec. 25, 26 or 27

This whole month has marked a season of gifts and love, anxiety and melancholy. But amid the holiday hubbub of commercial chaos, one occasionally can hear hope as well as hype.

Frantic competition and eager expectation, even an odd sense of foreboding or fear, can be quieted by a spirit of encouragement or reassurance.

Modern Washington and its effects on us aren’t exactly ancient Rome, but there are some similarities that offer lessons in perseverance and passion.

There’s the sinister centrality – the cacophony – of the marketplace, with its onslaughts of appeals to buy and of the growing power of big banks replacing moneychangers tainting temples.

There’s the feeling of frivolous pursuits, with fast food and smartphones instead of Romans’ “bread and circuses.”

And there’s an ominous régime that exhibits the callousness and ruthlessness of Rome and its occupying forces, its seizing of resources for elites, and the abuse of the census.

Millennia ago, a working-class couple without shelter – one an unwed, teen-age mother-to-be – had to register with the Empire’s census, and they went on a long journey made worse by their poverty.

Today’s corruption and repression ranges from using population numbers to carve out districts to make voting less meaningful, to a Congress approving a tax overhaul as insidious as some Roman Senate edict, and rulers such as President Trump attacking organizations or workers, immigrants, women, the disabled and so on, to bureaucrats like National Labor Relations Board member William Emanuel (Emanuel!) admitting that he previously represented more than 100 clients in union-busting efforts.

Again, the contemporary Capitol isn’t ancient Rome’s Curia, but regular people in the Empire then sang psalms and read texts to bolster their sometimes-shaky confidence.

Did armed Centurions lead troops using excessive force against those singing forbidden melodies?

Did Consuls or Tribunes punish commoners who read scripture such as the Old Testament’s Isaiah, who said, “Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!”

Some 2,000 years past, there were various resisters, insurgents and sects that cared for everyday people, who showed compassion for the poor and the ill, the jailed and the hungry, the exploited and the oppressed.

And there were sympathetic outsiders, few as famous as the Magi, traditionally known as Melchior of Persia, Gaspar of India, and Balthasar of Arabia. Traveling to Bethlehem from afar, they brought gifts, which we celebrate on Epiphany, January 6.

Melchior – in tales described as having long white hair and a beard and a golden cloak – brought gold, the precious metal linked to royalty. Gaspar – with brown hair and a beard and adorned in a green cloak and a bejeweled gold crown – delivered frankincense, a fragrant substance burned in reverent ceremonies. And Balthazar – recalled as a bearded black man wearing a purple cloak – presented myrrh, a perfume often used on the dead.

There are modern challenges that threaten us: “permanent war,” a deteriorating global climate, the risk of losing health care, an economy that increasingly serves those who need less help than most Americans, and other dangers.

However, we need not wait for affluent, benevolent strangers to arrive with treasures, nor other-worldly angels to magically transform the world. Rather – as the humble shepherds showed – ordinary folks can work together and help each other.

Hope and love are what’s at hand at Christmastime if we stop opening gifts and just listen to whispers in the air.

O, come all ye faithful.

Solidarity forever.