By Rev. Robert Plaisted

Guest Columnist

Seeing today’s title, some readers might say, “Whaaaat? Christmas will go on forever.” No, it won’t. Nothing goes on forever, no matter how beloved it may be to us. Humans once celebrated Christmas for the first time and, one day, humans will celebrate Christmas for the last time. Now, midway through my 81st year, I approach Christmas 2023, aware that it might be the last one I’ll ever experience. That makes me neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a realist.

We humans will determine how far into the future our celebration of the birth of Christ will continue. There’s a small, but real, chance that human corruption will become so atrocious in the coming year that our civilization will collapse into ruin, taking Christmas and other holiday celebrations with it. It’s highly unlikely, but it’s not impossible. Again, this is reality, and we really don’t like to think about it.

There’s something else we don’t like to think about — the wanton environmental damage that our frantic “Christmas Shopping Season” causes on Earth — our little blue planet, upon whose habitability we depend for everything we need. Earth is our Eden – our bountiful garden, without which we couldn’t exist. Another unpalatable fact: We’re destroying our Eden, just as surely as Adam and Eve destroyed theirs in the ancient biblical story.

Fact: 2023 will be the hottest year Earth has experienced since temperature records have been kept, and Earth’s atmosphere is the most polluted it’s been in 14 million years. Denialists foolishly label our climate crisis an “unproven theory,” or a “return to the Stone Age.” They try to link climate science to communism, as they did in last week’s edition. Let them lie, deny, defy, and blame the other guy. The damage is now out of their control, and mine. They’re betting humanity’s future on a losing hand. Our planet will have the last word.

Here’s a question for denialists. How many more Christmases would you like for your children and grandchildren to celebrate? My final Christmas isn’t far in the future, but you probably think the grand old holiday ought to last longer than that. So, do I, but it won’t, unless we drag our heads out of the sand and smarten up. Until we demonstrate that we care more about the future of our descendants than we care about our own comfort, nothing on Earth can change for the better. So long as we pretend that heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods are an accident or a commie plot, they only will get worse — like last week in the Pacific Northwest and this week here in the Atlantic Northeast. The climate crisis will continue until we change our foolish ways. Earth will go on overheating until humans stop burning fossil fuels. Period.

According to the Nativity story in Luke’s gospel, the angels at Bethlehem promised us peace on Earth and goodwill toward our fellow humans. On Earth today, both of those blessings are in short supply. We’re responsible for that sorry state of affairs. Another bloody war now rages, not far from Bethlehem, and still we cry “peace, peace” when there is no peace. None of this is God’s will. It’s ours.

“Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plain.” If we listen to that message, we might make some progress toward enjoying many more Christmases in the future.

Rev. Robert Plaisted is a retired United Methodist clergyman, formerly of Bridgton and Bath, now residing in Auburn.