You've Got To Have Faith

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of "THE SUN":

Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon

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Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years form now he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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I'm not sure how I can update my postscript for the 2010 holiday season. This has been a year of huge changes, at least for me - turning 18, hitting my senior year, panickedly thinking about college and after high school... it's been a year of changes and upheavals and a lot of growth. But something happened last night and this morning that has led me to realize that growing up isn't forever, and it doesn't mean you lose that childlike joy. We got home from my grandma's for Christmas Eve dinner and Mom asked if we wanted to watch a Christmas movie. I got enthusiastic and was chanting "Christmas movie! Christmas movie!" until Dad said that Santa wouldn't come if we were awake. Like someone flipped a switch the chant changed to "I'mma go get ready for bed! Come on guys, let's go to sleep!"

This morning - I actually slept in quite more than I'd intended. 8:30, honestly. And I woke up to my mom and my brother wishing each other Merry Christmas outside my room, and Mom adding that she didn't hear her "five-year-old" downstairs. The "five-year-old" being me. At any rate, "growing older but not up" has been my catchphrase for the last few months.

The Virginia editorial is a constant reminder for me that childhood is a state of mind, not a period of time. That simple wonder, that pure, innocent love... I've seen it in everyone, from the smallest child to some of the eldest people I know. You're never too old to believe in that ideal, and the beauty of Santa is that he never dies. As long as there's love and happiness, there will be a Santa Claus. And he will always be a beacon of light for all that's good in this world.

Smile. <3 He sees you when you're sleeping, and knows when you're awake.

Out, out, damned spot! What, will these hands never be clean?

Lady Macbeth's hand-washing scene has a good deal of back story for me, personally. In junior high I participated in a Shakespeare club: a handful of kids would get together in the counselor's office and read a play. We got to work through A Midsummer Night's Dream one year, and Macbeth the next - despite all of our wanting to do Hamlet or Romeo And Juliet (the counselor who sponsored us gently pointed out that we'd be studying both of those in high school). As there were, as I said, a handful of us, I got to read more parts than I thought I would: in Midsummer Night's Dream, we would all trade off. I believe I was Titania for a while, Helena or Hermia in the catfight scene... I may have even gotten to read Puck.


In Macbeth, a group of us were the Witches, along with other roles. And, to my immense pleasure, I got to be Lady Macbeth in the hand-washing scene. "The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?" The speech, the character, the play didn't mean a lot to me until this year, my senior year of high school, when my Literature class read it these past few weeks.

Roughly translated, what I'm getting at is guilt. Lady Macbeth was, in the end, consumed by the "spot" on her psyche: she was the catalyst for Macbeth's killings. She blamed herself at the same time that she took credit.

As this is the third consecutive day I've attempted to work on this post, I have absolutely no bleeding idea where I was trying to go with it. Suffice to say, regret blows. Don't do stupid stuff.

Bugger this. I'm POSITIVE I had something else to talk about. *gives up*

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

I've been on a slight T. S. Eliot kick these past few days. "The Waste Land" strikes something of a chord for me, and I rediscovered it while reading Macbeth. I don't quite remember the exact circumstances.

In light of the fact that I am now eighteen years and nine days old, I thought perhaps I should re-start this blog. I don't know if anyone reads it anymore, I don't know if I have anything particularly interesting to say today as opposed to any other day, but this way at least I feel like I've done something to acknowledge my reaching adulthood comparatively unscathed.

"The Waste Land." 'You gave my hyacinths first a year ago; they called me the hyacinth girl.' What speaks to me most about this poem is the lack of answers. Eliot's train of thought is unclear and fairly flighty, and the work doesn't make terribly much sense, at least not to me. And yet... and yet. The multitudinous allusions and repetitions and tiny little recurrences and the structure and the titles and the words...

-"What do you read, my lord?"

-"Words, words, words."

"While the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth."

Language, the ability to vocalize and communicate thought, is what sets humans apart from animals or trees or rocks. We think, therefore we are. Not only do we exist, we know we exist. And it's long been said that knowledge is power.

However, in existing, we must take responsibility for those around us - other humans, other existences, other beings.

Please forgive my heavy reliance on Christian doctrine - I was baptized Catholic shortly after birth, and grew up in the Episcopalian and Anglican churches. Were I better read, I would pull from other teachings. That being said, I refer to the Ten Commandments that Moses passed on to the Israelites: Thou shalt not kill, covet, disobey those with authority. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, although that's not in the Commandments, I believe.

That phrase in italics, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, appears in many forms throughout world history and religion. Kong Fuzi, Confucius to the Anglicized reader, dubbed it the Golden Rule. It is at the center of almost every major form of organized religion, and - differently phrased - at the heart of secular morals.

"Treat others the way you would like them to treat you."

"If it would bring you displeasure, don't do it to others."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..."

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or of the right of the people peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

All forms of loving and respecting others as you would have them love and respect you. Every last one of us is an individual - I for one would like to be treated as such. So, in light of the cliche "You have to give respect to get it," I try to live my life in such a way as does not infringe on the individuality of any other...individual.

This is part one of at least two parts to the post. I apologize for cutting this short, but time does not permit that I finish my thoughts at present.

Until next time.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih.