Most have us have heard the tale from the First World War, in outline if not in detail. On Dec. 24, 1914, German troops in the area of Ypres, Belgium went seriously off-message in the trenches. They mounted Christmas trees on their parapets and decorated them with candles. Throughout the day they sang Christmas carols to their enemies across the muddy no-man's land. The British troops responded by singing carols in English. By nightfall soldiers on both sides had left the trenches to mingle and exchange gifts of whisky, jam, cigars, chocolate and the like. According to military historian Gwynne Dyer, the Christmas truce spread down both the European trenches "at the speed of candlelight."
There are variations in this often-told tale, but most historians agree that the Germans initiated the truce. The horrified high command of both nations sent out immediate orders against fraternization. It took days before all the men had returned to the trenches, back to the vital business of killing each other.
The majority of human beings vastly prefer Christmaslike camaraderie to mud-caked combat. We're not so much natural born killers as natural born kibbitzers. U.S. after-action reports conducted in the Second World War suggested combat trainees were greatly reluctant to fire directly on other human beings, even in combat situations. The whole purpose of boot camp is to reverse the process of normal childhood socialization.
We're social animals by nature, and there is enormous plasticity in our behaviour. In his 2001 book, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, psychologist Jack Kornfield describes a conversation he had on a train with an African-American man who ran a rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders in Washington, D.C. The man tells the author of a 14-year-old boy in the program, who shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang.
At the trial, the victim's mother sat and said nothing, until the very end, when the youth was convicted of the killing. After the verdict was announced, according to Kornfield's account, she stood up slowly and staring directly at him, said, "I'm going to kill you." The youth was then led off to serve several years in the juvenile facility.
Kornfield describes how after the first six months the mother of the slain teenager went to visit the killer. He had been homeless before the killing, and she was his only visitor. They talked, and when she left she gave him money to buy cigarettes. She started to visit him on a regular basis, each time bringing food and small items.
The author writes, "Near the end of his three-year sentence, she asked him what he would be doing when he got out. He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to help set him up with a job at a friend's company. Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home. For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job. Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk. She sat down opposite him and waited. Then she started, 'Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you?' 'I sure do,' he replied. 'I'll never forget that moment.'
"'Well, I did," she went on. 'I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That's why I started to visit you and bring you things. That's why I got you the job and let you live here in my house. That's how I set about changing you. And that old boy, he's gone. So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you'll stay here. I've got room, and I'd like to adopt you if you let me.' And she became the mother he never had."
There are no explicit Christmas elements in Kornfield's unsourced anecdote. Yet for me, this story of a nameless woman's choice to occupy compassion rather than bitterness hits all the archetypal high points of the holidays. Against all expectations she cast her light into the darkness-not unlike the men of the First World War trenches, whose candlelit Christmas trees commenced a short-lived Peace on Earth.
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