Christmas has shrunk to a pine tree celebration, and there is already such a popular disease as Christmas stress.
It's Advent and the world is buzzing. Everything and almost everyone shouts. For many years now, loud lights and even louder advertisements have been flashing in the run-up to Christmas, shouting: buy this, buy that, travel here, travel there, just don't be silent anywhere. However, as far as the true meaning of Advent is concerned, i.e. waiting for the birth of Jesus Christ, a kind of inner silence and deepening, spiritual rest, it is slowly being covered by the complete obscurity of oblivion.
Christmas has shrunk to a pine tree celebration, and there is already such a popular disease as Christmas stress.
Which is formed because many people try to clean, buy gifts, and pack in pursuit of perfection, but very few succeed. I'm not used to it either. Therefore, the compulsion to comply weighs on us like a heavy burden, and our energy runs out. The lack of energy, on the other hand, makes me sick. If only because we don't have time for ourselves. And for all these reasons we start to feel anxious.
The phenomenon is familiar, but I learned of it with complete shock when - perhaps during the Advent period of last year, the year before last - an advertisement proclaimed that there was now an antidote to the disease called Christmas stress, namely a dietary supplement that, as advertised, would get rid of it from stress and relieves fatigue. There are both adult and children's versions of the easily available stress reliever. So, the whole world is for sale. From Christmas, from stress, from everything. I haven't heard such an ad this year. Was the product so effective that it freed its users from Christmas stress for several years? I hardly believe it, it's more likely that the mentioned stress reliever has run out of time, and there are just enough crazy offerings on the market this year - in honor of Christmas.
Here we are and the sky is not falling.
I, on the other hand, would try to break away from the raucous shopping frenzy. And I will describe what I always thought as an adult about the Savior, about the little one born at Christmas, whose birth brought about a new quality.
Someone came who showed us where to go, how to rise, and what is man's vocation on earth. He let us know that there is love, there is truth and there is also human quality. Jesus Christ lived as he spoke.
Even this is a huge task for an ordinary person. Even Jesus was not tolerated for proclaiming that he is the way, the truth and the life. And he was killed. The revenge is still valid, for example, he was left out of the European constitution. Of free will. It was the result. For example, in Sweden, where - because they are extremely modern and enlightened - they inaugurated an altarpiece in which Jesus takes part in a homosexual orgy. We could slowly fill lexicons with the list of anti-Christian acts, there are so many of them all over the world.
So we wait. Not only to make our holy holiday beautiful and intimate, but also to make the world more normal.
I know that faith cannot be given to our fellow men either easily or by force. Not at all. Neither Christian, nor Buddhist, nor Muslim. But you can appeal to people's good sense. At least to try. Trying to get him to break out of the bondage of money and the loudness of the world. I am quoting Mother Teresa, who was once asked, what does it help to ease someone's pain a little, since the suffering in the world is so immeasurable? To this he replied:
"I know the ocean of suffering is endless, but this ocean will be one drop less."
You can think like that. And also as one of the most bohemian figures of Hungarian literature did. Gyula Krudy. Who was bohemian and wise at the same time. In his words, I wish you a blessed holiday.
"To buy a gift, to give a gift, to wipe away a tear, to enjoy a child's laughter, to cheer up a sad woman, to raise a fallen man to his feet, (...) to pay for deceit with a handshake, to alleviate poverty, to smooth away the deep folds of the forehead, to instill humanity in a wild, bitter heart, (...) the to tenderly visit lonely mourners, to embrace a ragged child, to stop a faltering step towards sin, to raise the head of one who with bowed head is looking for the highest branch on which to tie himself - this would be the job of the rich in the world.
No, this thing is for the poor who have nothing themselves.”
Featured image: MTI Photo / Imre Földi
