Sunday, December 13, 2020
Sunday Reflection: Santa's friends are dead
Hopefully you have heard Bob Dylan's frantic and confusing klezmer-style "Must Be Santa." It's kind of perfect for a year where things are frantic and don't make sense. The song is older-- at least as old as Mitch Miller and the Gang's recording in 1961. Part of the lyrics are these for lines:
Who wears a long cap on his head?
Santa wears a long cap on his head!
Cap on head-suit that's red
Special night, beard that's white....
Anyways, when I was a kid I heard a band doing this song, and they messed with the lyrics, so that it came out this way:
Who wears a long cap on his head?
Santa wears a long cap on his head!
Cap on head-friends are dead
Special night, beard that's white....
I know-- where were the parents? We welcome their take in the comments section.
Anyways, the song got stuck in my head that way, and eventually the idea that Santa's friends were dead migrated over into my unexamined back story about Santa. If someone had asked me over the past several years about this, it would have gone like this:
IPLawGuy: I wonder who Santa is friends with?
Mark: Well, his friends are dead.
IPLawGuy: What?!?
Mark: Yeah, Santa's friends are dead. That's part of the story, right? Like in the song. {sings "Cap on head-Friends are dead!"}
IPLawGuy: Stay away from my kids.
It's only now that I am thinking this through. In a way, it makes sense: Santa has employees (possibly slaves), a wife, and reindeer, but no buddy to watch football with or anything, right? And I suppose that at some point he could have been part of a cabal or political movement that got wiped out with Claus as the only survivor, and after that he no longer trusted friendship.
The point is (yes, there is a point) that we all have things that become beliefs without really examining them, often entering through the broader culture. That's true, maybe especially, in our faith lives. Of course, it is tiring and sometimes dispiriting to really examine the things we assume and believe, especially if those things are reinforced by the people around us.
For Christians, this can be especially hard regarding those beliefs (ie, Christianity=capitalism, or Christianity=nationalism) that underpin other beliefs. For me, I long assumed that Christianity=Pacifism, but under close examination I had to re-thing an absolute view on that.
But Santa's friends being dead? I'm sticking with that one.
Comments:
Where were the parents? I was there, but I always have trouble understanding the lyrics unless the singers enunciate very clearly. Thus Osler children listened to a lot of R-rated music. Most of what you listened to ended up on Tipper Gore’s list of indecent music. Children often misunderstand lyrics. My favorite was the kid who thought that the hymn “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear” was about a cross-eyed bear named Gladly. The Osler children turned out well despite lax parenting.
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Where were the parents? I was there, but I always have trouble understanding the lyrics unless the singers enunciate very clearly. Thus Osler children listened to a lot of R-rated music. Most of what you listened to ended up on Tipper Gore’s list of indecent music. Children often misunderstand lyrics. My favorite was the kid who thought that the hymn “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear” was about a cross-eyed bear named Gladly. The Osler children turned out well despite lax parenting.
# posted by 
: 8:17 AM
: 8:17 AM
Being a “Wherever you are on your walk with God” Episcopalian, I have always thought of Santa is a representation of God himself. Just as God he was low, so the center. And really, no one to be gods peer, but we can all be his friend. And it’s the same way. God‘s friends have died, but they’re all alive in Christ and the same with Santa.
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