There is something wonderful about a baby.
We recently became grandparents. We just returned from visiting our son and his family in Taiwan, where we met our first grandchild, the most beautiful girl in the world.
As I walked through a market in Taiwan holding my 5-month-old grandchild in my arms, passers-by would smile and nod. Her presence seemed to melt differences and distance.
Strangers beamed and spoke as friends. Though from different continents, we connected beyond barriers of language and culture, enjoying a shared delight. We couldn’t understand each other, yet Chinese strangers eloquently expressed their compliments in gestures and smiles, and I mimed to them my gratitude and pride.
A child brings us together into something mysterious and wonderful. Maybe that is why Christmas seems so universally accessible.
People of many faiths and no faith seem to enjoy the pastoral scene of the manger: mother and child, shepherds and beasts and strange foreigners bearing exotic gifts. You don’thave to be a Christian to be drawn into the fascinating tableau.
There is something especially compelling about a newborn child: the vulnerable openness, the hope of new life, the sheer beauty and innocence.
Christmas is the church’s most accessible celebration.
A 1983 Supreme Court decision judged a citysponsored Pawtucket, R.I., creche display - complete with reindeer, Santa and candy canes - sufficiently nonreligious that it did not violate the exclusionary clause. I like that. It tells me that one need not be Christian to embrace such an open symbol.
Maybe that’s why people seem to feel free to play so creatively with the figures of the manger scene. There is something going around the Internet with hilarious images of ways people have depicted the creche - withthings like vegetables, Legos and pets - dozens of examples.
Somehow people know intuitively that the manger is a gentle and hospitable symbol. It is not as exclusively Christian and intimidating as the crucifixion. You don’t see vegetable depictions of the crucifixion. That would feel like satire rather than fun, a depreciation rather than lugubrious celebration.
The Christmas scene communicates an open, generous spirit. The Holy Family comfortably nestles the babe, with ox and ass and herders and sheep.
Although shepherds in that day had near-criminal reputations as thieves and trespassers, they and their flocks are welcome at the manger. Jesus’ family offers generous hospitality to those from another faith, the star-following Magi who come bringing exotic tokens from their alien tradition.
All are welcome. None are judged. There is room for everyone. That’s the spirit of Christmas that we’re invited to offer graciously to the world.
What a violation of the Christmas spirit it is when some Christians attack merchants for beinggenerous in this holy time - merchants who offer an inclusive greeting like “Happy Holidays” rather than the more particularly Christian “Merry Christmas.”
We Christians borrow much of our Christmas celebration from other religious traditions. We don’t know what day Jesus was born, of course. But when Christians wanted to celebrate the birth, we borrowed from others’ solstice observances. Many faiths have some festive solstice expression of the triumph of light over darkness, of the coming of the sun that promises a renewal of life.
Christians join the earth religions and so many others in celebrating holy things at the winter’s turn.
And we borrow from them many of the symbols that are sacred to us at this time of year - the evergreen tree, stars, fire, lights, bells, Yule log, gifts, feasts, mistletoe and holly.
Christians don’t have a monopoly on the holy days of December.
Our particular contribution is a gentle story of God’s coming to us in the most vulnerable, intimate and accessible waywe could imagine. God’s coming to us as a baby.
Christmas invites us to be meek and mild - soft, welcoming and generous - with smiles and open arms for friend and stranger alike. Like Joseph, Mary and the child, we can welcome our neighbors of other faiths, crossing boundaries of language and culture, making room for their wisdom, joy and gifts.
Babies help us do that.
So, in this wonderful season we can offer our generous greetings: Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Yuletide, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Eid (when Ramadan is in December), Merry Christmas, and to all, Happy Holidays.
LOWELL GRISHAM IS AN EPISCOPAL PRIEST WHO LIVES IN FAYETTEVILLE.
Opinion, Pages 15 on 12/25/2011