A Little Something from the Vaults (Volume 14.5)

Christmas is impossible. It can’t be done. That woman won’t be silent. It can’t be expressed. Encapsulate all the colors, meanings, music, and history of World War II into one sentence, commas permitted. Now do it with a far more earth-shattering, far more complicated, more unspeakable event. That’s the tension of Christmas.

At the first creation, words were not enough. Too thin. Not even close. The expression had to go deeper, beyond mere words. Angels had to scream at the art—scream at the eagles, scream at the sand, at the elephants, at fire, oysters. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit couldn’t be captured in words alone, so He used evergreens and walruses. The whole creation is the shout of His personality. But even tidal waves prove insufficient. He overflows. Thus, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” The Christmas sentence. Two sentences, one with a compound predicate. God “has spoken to us by His Son . . . the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” More insufficient sentences.

Nearly a decade ago, Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, began talking about what he called the “Leave-us-Alone” Coalition.  Norquist's coalition, which includes Christian activists, defenders of property rights, home schoolers, tax-cut advocates, gun owners, and others, are united mainly by their opposition to continued expansion of federal power and by their support for lower taxes.  Last I checked, Norquist is still beating the drum: “The modern conservative movement is a coalition of groups and individuals who wish to be left alone,” he explained in a 2007 column.  “On their primary, vote-moving issue, what they want from the government is to be left alone.”  Norquist still believes that his coalition represents a majority of American citizens, and others have seen in the Tea Party Coalition a revival of Norquist's brainchild.