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Merry Christmas and Happy Gurpurab
Christmas comes once a year, but it takes over the lives of those of us who are not even nominal Christians. Christmas is a bonanza for retailers and sales outlets. People go into debt to buy what they neither need, nor want, nor can afford.
This American Christmas spirit cares not whether one is a devout deist, a committed agnostic or atheist. It makes no distinction between an observant Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Sikh. In some ways, we all love it and we all live it. It knits together diverse people and many esoteric faiths and festivals.
Minorities do not live a secluded existence inside impenetrable barriers - that would become an unacceptable ghetto. Majoritarian cultural practices continue to seep into the traditions of minorities communities. And quite expectedly, minorities often adjust their holidays somewhat to piggyback on the celebrations of the majority community.
Divali, for instance, stems from Hindu mythology, with tenuous or no connection to Sikhi, Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Yet, irrespective of religious persuasion, it would be a rare Indian who did not observe this national holiday. In India, it is Divali that intrudes into Sikh space and colors its traditions; in the West, it is Christmas. No one is an island.
In the Indian lunar calendar, the birthday - gurpurab (literally, day of the Guru) -- of the tenth Sikh Master, Guru Gobind Singh, falls close to Christmas. That allows us to merge Sikh celebration with Christmas and its practices - dinners, lighting of houses, and exchange of presents. We can then practice our own tradition without standing out as a sore thumb.
In days gone by, wearing a red turban, I have, at times, filled in for Santa Claus at children's parties; my friends and I quipped that I was a younger, trimmer version of Santa.
Some 30 years ago, when a celebration of Christmas surrounded us, my nearly three-year-old daughter wanted a Christmas tree. Our dilemma was how best to join in the overwhelming celebration while enmeshing Sikh heritage in it, but without diminishing either tradition.
So, we settled upon what was then a novel idea. We shopped around for a bagful of religious markers from many different faiths of mankind as ornaments for the tree, and topped it with a foil-covered replica of a Sikh marker (khanda); thus was our own ecumenical Christmas tree assembled.
That tree also adorned our personally designed New Year's greeting cards. The many questions emanating from friends and neighbors made for an unrivaled opportunity for building bridges.
Does this piggybacking dilute the message? Perhaps, but not the spirit or the intent; it helps us to see the universal connectivity that underlies our common humanity.
So, my friends, a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful Gurpurab, Kwanza, Hannukah to all!
I.J. Singh is a professor of anatomical sciences at New York University and is a regular columnist for sikhchic.com. He also is the author of four collections of essays on his journey as a Sikh in North America:Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias (1994, 1998); The Sikh Way: A Pilgrim's Progress (2001); Being & Becoming a Sikh (2003); The World According to Sikhi (2006).
By I.J. Singh |
December 21, 2008; 11:21 PM ET
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Posted by: TejwantSMalik | December 30, 2008 8:51 PM
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All these people who have commented above either have not read the interesting essay by I.J. Singh or have their own agenda to peddle no matter what the author has written.
IJ is talking about celebration, which means sharing happiness with others. I want to ask the posters why happiness is a sad thing for them?
Posted by: TejwantSMalik | December 30, 2008 8:35 PM
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DANNAWINER wrote:
"As another contributor mentioned "No one knows..." - that's why it is about faith - seeing what doesn't exist (Hebrews 11)"
Seeing things that don't exist. That's not faith. That's delusion.
Religion calls it faith because it sounds better to say "I have faith" than "I am gullible to the extreme", even though they both mean the same thing.
The concept of religious faith is the most ingenious and diabolical brain washing tool ever created. Make people believe that it is virtuous to buy whatever the Bible says in the face of zero evidence and zero logic and zero reason.
Posted by: timmy2 | December 22, 2008 12:44 PM
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In the whole bibil, the word Bible is not mentioned. Christians claimed that Bible is from Almighty, it is funny, Almighty book named by man. Almighty is a perfect, but his book Bible has many contradictions, and uncomplete guidelines for the humanbeing. It is up to you to consider an uncomplete and contradict book as an from Almighty.
Posted by: shafiuddin | December 22, 2008 6:14 AM
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Please see an article posted in the International Herald Tribune (Kuwait Section "Al Watan") for an article about the Qoranic (Surah 19 "Miriyam") story of the birth of Jesus Christ (PBUH) which mirrors the story found in the Biblical gospels in the main points especially the Gospel of Mathew which is considered the most "Jewish" of the gospels. It is interesting that the writer of this article vascillates between an emphasis on the similarities between Biblical and Qoranic and disclaimers about the divine nature of the person described in a birth to a Virgin, however, that should be understood in the context that it is published in a country that doesn't really have freedom of religion and a culture that is very afraid to focus on the Qoranic description of the birth of Jesus and what they implies regarding his nature. As my Muslim husband once asked me - thinking he was challenging my belief in the divine nature of Christ - "What happened to the DNA". What indeed happened to the DNA in the womb of the Virgin that resulted in - not a clone of her but the birth a man who performed miracles and preached and lived unmitigated peace? Since my husband asked me that question my own view of the nature of Christ swayed from a "human filled with the Holy Spirit" towards the "fully human and fully divine". But that's just me - who knows?! As another contributor mentioned "No one knows..." - that's why it is about faith - seeing what doesn't exist (Hebrews 11)...
http://alwatandaily.alwatan.com.kw/Default.aspx?MgDid=706335&pageId=473
Posted by: danawinner | December 22, 2008 4:12 AM
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The legends/embellishment of Guru Nanak Dev are not as "legendary" as those of the simple preacher man aka Jesus, but still another example of religious mumbo jumbo. It should not be Merry X-mas or Happy Gurpurab but Happy Myth Day to all and to all good night!!
Posted by: CCNL | December 22, 2008 1:29 AM
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I hope that the author and everyone else notes that it is the secularization of Christmas that brings us all together to celebrate as one culture, the spirit of giving and brotherly love. Christians, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs can all celebrate the spirit of humanity at the winter solstice. We can all worship the human quality of charity and compassion.
Why oh why, after this, must we return to our separate religions?
Why can't we stay as one?
Religion is a divider. Secularism is a uniter.
No one knows anything about God.
No one.
No one even knows if there is a God.
No one.
We should all admit that.
We will all get along then. Like secular Christmas.
Why not?????????????
Posted by: timmy2 | December 22, 2008 1:25 AM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
All these people who have commented above either have not read the interesting essay by I.J. Singh or have their own agenda to peddle no matter what the author has written.
IJ is talking about celebration, which means sharing happiness with others. I want to ask the posters why happiness is a sad thing for them?