You know, Beethoven's birthday comes just a little before Christmas. I heard on the radio (www.wcrb.com) that Beethoven was the best pianist of his day, but he didn't perform publicly until about age 28. Then he was said to play the piano so beautifully, with such expression and force, that his audience frequently wept. Whereupon the divine Beethoven rose from his stool and laughed. He said, 'Why do you cry? You are fools.' Well, I guess not all chefs are fat.
A week or so later that brings us to Christmas. Now, the professional writer faced with Christmas might well be filled with desperation. How can she write anything about such a hackneyed subject? True, the buying audience spends more money just before Christmas than at any other time of year. And magazines and newspapers are filled with commercial advertisements from merchants who need to sell off their stock, while the rest of the publication is starved for editorial content. People want to read something genuine that makes them laugh or cry. But they don't really want to cry. Too childish. They buy books or recordings or other artifacts, often not so much to read them or learn from them or even enjoy them, but to express their cultural superiority, to show off their exquisite knowledge and attainment, by mere ownership and display of goods to prove they are worthy, and belong with the gods. Any real belly laughs, despair, or resemblance to the cold, cruel world is merely incidental. We are fools.
Many gods were never children. It might be a fact. But I prefer a god and a person who was once a child. The truth is, from my corner, life, and great art, often (or just sometimes) do carry us away in spite of ourselves. Think of a great snow storm or the death of a child or parent. We think we are something, a respectable audience who has paid the price of admission. But we find we are once again in the helpless position of a infant in the middle of something we cannot understand. All we can do is cry or laugh uncontrollably. Sorry, fools, no refunds. This, child, is being human, this is life, this is great art. How can you be a reader, a writer, an artist, an ex-child, or a god without this experience?
Achieving this effect through art might be a trick that inspired artists can turn on when needed, without consciously knowing how. But I for one thank you, Beethoven, and I thank you, courageous writers and artists and people who take up tools for us fools, and communicate to us the truth of being human, just before Christmas, which is the story of a god who also was once a child.
You know, person who was once a child, if we listen carefully we might yet hear Him cry or laugh just as we did, and still do, cry and laugh once in a while. When we cry, the world cries. When we laugh, God laughs too, and He sometimes laughs at us when we are crying. We've paid our admission, why shouldn't we cry if we want to?
So cry on, deaf Beethoven! Laugh at us fools for joy! Merry Christmas, children of all ages!