Stop me if you’ve heard me tell or write this story, as I have so many times, but I’m compelled to tell it again at this time of the year and on this very special day. It’s not the usual Santa Claus kind of Christmas story, but it has remained with me for a great many years, as I think it will with you, as well.
I’ll have to admit that it isn’t really a Christmas story, but it’s so closely related to what the Christmas spirit has come to mean to me — and I hope to you — that, once it is told, one will always remember it when December 25th rolls around at the end of the year.
Quite a few years ago, in the early 1950s, in fact, I had invited Mark Tobey to lunch at a restaurant in downtown Seattle, and I told him beforehand it was for the purpose of interviewing him, a chore he didn’t really like. However, he went along without complaint because we had been good friends for several years.
Tobey, as all art aficionados in the Pacific Northwest know, was the region’s best-known artist and one who was known in arts circles worldwide, as well. Since he, like most artists I have known, was primarily a philosopher, I began by asking him about his views on such things as immortality, religion, and the soul.
I did so, not only because of his celebrated status as a Northwest artist, but also because I knew he was a lifelong member of Bahai, the international organization that celebrates a variety of religious prophets but believes none is supernatural and that a person should not become attached to any religion.
My main question went this way: Are you, as an individual in God’s Country, the Pacific Northwest, opposed to organized religions of any kind? He showed no opposition to being asked the question, took a sip of coffee, then answered:
“Oh, no, not by any measure or means. Like Voltaire, I believe that if there were no God, mankind would have had to invent him.”
When I suggested that his statement seemed to conflict with his longheld Bahai beliefs, he answered: “Not at all. Faith and religion have given the human race moral standards it must have to exist. If nothing else, they have taught humans to be kind, considerate, and polite to each other or perish from the earth.
“Isn’t that the real meaning of Christmas, Christianity, all religions, and, in fact, civilization itself?” He seemed to be perfectly at ease with his pronouncements and expressed no surprise at my questions. I wondered why he had not incorporated his feelings about the real meaning of Christmas, Christianity, religions, and civilization in his famliar “white writing” style that had made him famous.
I loved his response, because it was so typical of the man. “Oh, it’s there, Lou. You’ll find it in virtually all my paintings and drawings if you look for it. Really look hard.” With that, he put down his coffee cup and smiled broadly, as if he had caught this onetime art critic napping.
Tobey’s explanation wasn’t exactly the way I had learned to measure Christmas, religion, faith, and civilization. But I admit that Tobey’s opinion has had a great impact on my own feelings about this holy season of mankind. I wish you the best and most civilized of Christmases.