Santa Claus Was the Christmas Star

All of us have suffered the same tired discussion every year for the past 2,000 years: What's the truth about the Christmas Star? I hesitate to even mention it -- beating the same old dead horse -- because most of us turn it off at the first breath. Even now I feel queasiness coming over me. And it always ends inconclusively, because, whoever it is -- scientists, theologians, pastors, Sunday School teachers, even your parents -- it always ends the same way: "We'll never know." Doesn't that just make you sick?

In fact, they come pretty close to saying there wasn't even actually a Christmas star. They point out, rightly, that with a simple sky-view app, we're able to see precisely what the stars in the sky were like on any day in history. According to this, there wasn't any unusual star activity on the first Christmas. They tell of various conjunctions of stars on different dates, but none of them are quite right. Especially if you factor in the Wise Men (Magi), following a star that eventually pointed to a particular location!

I can't believe I just belched out a whole paragraph on this. That's how queasy I get. Because I've been saying for years that the star was actually Santa Claus. When the story says it was a "star," of course we can take that a couple different ways. Santa Claus is a major "star," right? He's even one of the "stars" of Christmas, is he not? I'm saying that's what the Bible meant.

A couple things here. You might say Santa wasn't even around in the days of Jesus. I beg to differ. How many times have I seen authoritative artwork showing Santa Claus bowing at the manger? Yes, they have an agenda when they put those pictures out, trying to detract from Santa and give greater prominence to Jesus. The agenda, unmistakeably, has to do with how Christmas has become commercialized. Which wasn't the case way back when.

But the pictures tell me something different: Santa was there! How did he get there? Isn't it obvious? Hello? His sleigh? The brightness of his countenance (let's say), and the leadership of Rudolph ... It had to be a magnificent sight in the sky of the ancient world, before electricity, when nights were extremely dark.

It's no great shakes to answer how Santa knew about Jesus. If he knows every boy and girl in the world, what they're doing when they're awake, when they're asleep, when they're bad and good, how much more is he going to know Jesus! The very guy who would go on to compete with him -- head to head, mano a mano -- for Christmas supremacy. I'm sure they got together as the years went by, trying to hammer out who would get what, which one would get the fun side and which the serious side. That's how it should be done. Like in the circus, you've got clowns and regular people. Or TV, cartoons and documentaries.

In my opinion, I'd much rather it was Santa Claus than an actual burning star. An literal star, if it got too close, would fricassee Christ and completely obliterate the earth. You don't mess around with stars. Our sun is a star, 93 million miles away, and look at the damage it does. But Santa Claus, being a person, whatever star quality he has, gives things a personal touch. He can rip across the sky, leading the Wise Men, then double back and make sure they're not lost. When Herod goes out to look at the star, he can be hiding in an alley. Then back up! And most importantly, he can hover right above the stable and point to it without fricasseeing anyone.

I'd love to sit down with Santa and get his take on this stuff. Wow! To think, all those years when I was a kid, I was in the same house with him. However briefly. But always asleep. There on my little bundle of straw, my parents standing on either side of me, looking down, with sheep, donkeys, and cattle lowing. Waking up to the Little Drummer Boy, who back then was my parents' paperboy. We don't have paperboys anymore; now it's just a guy tossing it from his truck and roaring off.

The Comet I Came In On

I've been watching an infinity of science shows on TV. I'm becoming something of a groupie for the greats in science. If so many of them weren't dead long ago, I'd be at their dressing room door.

It's refreshing to me, being able to see my Fellow Brains exploring things and explaining it so others can finally understand what's going on. If I knew how exciting it was in school, I would've been fascinated by the recesses of the past. Instead, all I can look back on are the recesses of the past.

I have to nod every time Neil deGrasse Tyson says something, or Michio Kaku, or when Stephen Hawking's narrator voice speaks. I friend-love each of these guys (h.t. to Yumi Sakugawa). Tyson, I frankly never heard of till the Cosmos show, now I find he's been famous all this time. Proving once again, the talk at the barber show is strictly lowbrow. I definitely think Tyson's cool. If we could do a brain switch, it'd be me flying in space, and him writing these trifles.

As for flying in space, actually we all are! Ultimately, at these speeds, the Milky Way galaxy flying a million miles an hour, you'd think it'd at least mess your hair. But somehow we don't notice it that much, especially when we stay inside. The fact is it's all very big, millions of miles across, big like Greenland on the Mercator map.

Some of the shows I've seen lately have touched on comets and the theory that earth's water came from outer space. The way time works is if you have enough of it, anything's possible. It might take 100 million years for the earth to form, then another 100 million for comets to create the oceans, maybe a thousand gallons at a pop. Very weird stuff, but perfectly timed. Unless you're worried about all the comets that missed us before earth was here. Someone else has our water!

Naturally, 100 million years, not to mention 13.8 billion years, takes us rather far afield of 4004 BC, and that glorious day when, after a restful weekend, God smiled and created the heavens and the earth. It's getting tougher to hold to the "one swell foop" doctrine, especially when we can still look and see the light from 13.8 billion years ago. But to each his own. I actually haven't yet given up on the theory that we won't be created for another 100 years, and our apparent presence now is only meant to eventually test our faith in the Doctrine of Postponed Reality.

You can't deny the attractiveness of the doctrine. None of my mistakes have yet happened. I can still be Tyson and Tyson me. And someday I'll miraculously "write" all the Beatles' songs at the age of 5. Coincidentally, at this moment I'm listening to Mozart's 40th symphony, another of my future originals.

OK, the comets are theorized not just to have brought water but the beginnings of life on earth. Which makes sense, if the earth was previously nothing but dry asteroids colliding and erupting in fire. We know comets have ice. I posit that a million of them put out the fires and the rest filled the ocean basins. Surely among 500 million comets there'd have to be at least two living germs hot to trot.

It's all been so long ago, of course we don't know which comet it was. It's the stuff of Cold Case. But we know how it turned out. A germ, various mutations, the dinosaur, more mutations, the gerbil, the cockatiel, more mutations, a monkey in a tree, Darwin, the rest of us, Devo, and finally Neil deGrasse Tyson and me. O the regrets! He was a friends with Carl Sagan and became a great astrophysicist. I had a tough time making friends, but could spell 'encyclopedia' in 5th grade and understood the distinctions between 'from' and 'form' when they stumped the other kids. The glory years!

Remember the cult a few years ago -- in the '90s -- waiting for a comet to pick them up? They didn't get it. The comet you came in on dropped you off for a reason, then crashed somewhere. It ain't coming back.

I Am Diametrically Opposed

When you care enough to be really opposed to something, always hold out for being diametrically opposed. Even if you're stupid about words, diametrically obviously carries an extra level of disdain -- purple passion -- to show you're not just dinking around. The very word declares itself the Diamond Standard of Opposition, unmistakable in whatever its implications may be.

I've actually been a very nice guy, for many years. And I will continue that practice, no matter who I have to walk over to do it. But I must be smart -- and this I recommend for others, too, because we've all had trouble with the bastards. Those we've tried to please. Who are then more than happy to run roughshod over us, overwhelm us, and leave us in the dust, themselves never looking back, unless by some special dispensation, like the need to get a picture for the party. I am diametrically opposed to the whole thing!

"Diamonds are a girl's best friend," I used to hear my mom say, with my dad then putting off the subject for more prosperous times which, unfortunately, never came. But she always had that dream. There's a reason diamonds are the gift for the 75th anniversary, because basically no one makes it. And the ones who do are always the frugal souls who have no use for them.

Diamonds are extremely valuable, we see, and for good reason. I saw a good science show that said diamonds are from stars, actually like everything except hydrogen. Only stars (and Superman) can crush carbon sufficiently to make a diamond! Think about that! Only stars and Superman! Meaning, for our purposes today, that if you're diametrically opposed to something, you're really special. But what happens is, Most of us limit our opposition, making us weaklings for the slightest persuasion (or trickery, rhetorical or otherwise). But no more! 

You can tell I'm serious, OK? Stepping out of character here. Enough is enough. I've finally decided this is how it's going to be. It's literally now or never; if I'm going to prevail, I have to change things now. Enough being everyone's dishrag, snot-rag, doormat, and the last bendable obstacle in their way. And I ask you to join me. From now on -- even with our basically good attitudes still intact -- we shall be against it! Diametrically opposed!

I'm putting Republicans on notice ... as of ... now.

Seriously, Stars Should Be Big News

It surprises me that the stars aren't bigger news than they are. It's been a long time since I saw a decent article in the paper about the stars, that they're there and anything else about them.

When I take my dog out for her business, sometimes it's after dark or dark in the early morning hours. Each time, if the sky is clear, I look up at the stars and feel kind of amazed that they're there and about some of the things I know about them. Then, amazingly, I don't see much news about them!

The little bit of study I've done on the stars was a year or so ago. Since then, I've forgotten a lot of what I learned. But there for a while I knew the names of maybe 15 different ones. Still, anyone can look up at them and enjoy them, which I do.

The grouping that has Orion's Belt is the one that always catches my eye, in the times of the year that I can see it. It has Betelgeuse in it. This is an interesting star, in that it's expected sometime to blow up. Seriously. An interesting thing about it is that when it does blow up, it will have blown up something like 600 years ago. Meaning, by the time we see it blow up, if it does in our lifetimes, that will mean it blew up like 600 years before. Because even though the speed of light is totally fast, it still takes quite a while to get here if the source of light is extra distant! To me that's big news!

I don't have a good view of the northern sky, but that's where the dippers are. Sometimes I can see the Big Dipper, which I always enjoy. I see it only sometimes because it's busy, from our point of view, going around in circles. If you look at the top (sometimes bottom) edge of the dipper and extrapolate out from those two stars with a straight line, they lead you to the northern star every time. To me that deserves a story!

Then there is the immensity of the stars, which should be big news. Because there's nothing bigger, except black holes and various distances. We think the Sun is enormous, and it is, but a bunch of these stars in the night sky dwarf the Sun. They're immense ... and so far away that -- I haven't tested this -- even a pair of binoculars doesn't make them seem any closer.

I hesitated posting this article about the stars. Because it's a little too much a straightforward serious science article and not something humorous, which I prefer posting. Call it a big complaint I have, though, and sometimes I simply need to use my huge soapbox on the internet to agitate for progress. If you agree with me that the stars are getting the short end of the stick in the news, please contact your local newspaper and tell them you want more.

I really don't think the papers have it in for the stars or anything. That would be ridiculous. What I think it is, is the stars are always there and we take them for granted. Like trees or Dairy Queens. So we're not giving them a second thought. But when we do, ah, things are different. The fact that they could blow up any minute, 600 years ago, is really something. The fact that they point to the northern star, and thereby to the cardinal direction north, is unbelievable but true. And the fact that they're enormous and very distant is a bit of trivia -- truth -- that ought to be more generally known.

They're so busy reporting everything else, the newspapers ... how about giving the stars their due?

My Christmas Star

I awoke yesterday morning very early. It was pitch-black out. All I could see were the streetlights, an occasional car passing, and the twinkle from a few of the neighbors' bathroom windows.

It had been a cloudy night, and still, you could've cut the fog with a knife. Tremendously thick. It hit me hard.

The thing about it, why it hit me hard, was that my prayer before bed was that I might see the Christmas Star, and behold it. I thought, "Well, maybe next year. My prayers must have gotten stuck in the fog."

The Christmas Star. Just saying it instantly recalls the story of old that we all heard when we were just little tykes. It's one of the first stories I ever heard, and I remember the details of it even to this day. The Three Wise Men lived in their own country -- somewhere -- then they saw a magnificent star in the sky, appearing bigger than any other. The other odd thing is it went before them on their journey. They followed it, singing:

Star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright.
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us by thy perfect light.

It was an awesome sign, one they were privileged to divine. Whereas everyone else was at their wit's end, with no clue. Then as now, miracles are tough to fathom. They kept going, and kept going, from one country to another, inquiring after kings and prophets to enhance their understanding. But none of them knew!

In the end, they came to Judea, and made inquiry at the court of Herod. There they met with the same perplexity, but finally the word came as to where Christ would be. They hurried on, and found the Babe with His mother and Joseph standing over him. As they offered their gifts, they beheld for one last time the Christmas Star before it vanished into the mysterious slipstream of eternity.

So I said my prayers, that the world, and I, might behold the Christmas Star again. I felt we might grasp the sign today with greater recognition, since we've heard the story a million times. But could it ever again appear? Suddenly, I felt the conviction that I must get in my car and drive. Drive? Where to? Just drive!

I went a few blocks and saw a big red light. Which turned out to be the light on the water tower. I saw some other lights somewhere else, which turned out to be another dead end. Then other lights out by the interstate, flashing, which unfortunately turned out to be a cop who had pulled over some folks. Any time I see cops pulling over people, I have my own song:

Better him than me,
Better him than me!
One thing I can say for sure,
Better him than me!

I kept driving, and the thought occurred to me, "Don't follow lights. Just drive out into the country where it's dark. And have faith!" So I turned down the crummiest looking, scuzziest, worst maintained gravel road I could find. I kept driving. It was so dark, even the deer weren't awake. I had no idea where I was going. But I kept going, praying, "Show me the Christmas Star!"

It took a while, but finally I crested one unlikely looking hill and there was a star on a post over by a guy's barn. He either forgot to set the timer to turn it off at 3 a.m., or maybe the powers on high had turned it on, just for me. It was nailed together and trimmed with light bulbs, the energy-wasting kind that we used to use without guilt. I thought, "How humble. Yet how awesome." This has to be My Christmas Star. It doesn't have to float around in the heavens for it to offer its powerful message. Naturally, I broke down, and to compose myself again was not very easy.

That's when I remembered the story of Christmas, the rugged, humble manger and all the rest ... and I knew all would be well.

May you also find Your Christmas Star!

OUR CHRISTMAS CARD TO YOU:

On behalf of myself and the remaining members of the Board of Editors -- Dale and Delilah, our only female member -- I want to give you the best of all Season's Greetings, and our firm hope that you also will share in the richest blessings of the New Year.