January 16, 2005

Now that the Christmas season is over, I guess I can talk about it.

“It” is the dreaded Christmas newsletter. We seem to live in a world populated by two types of people: those who write and send Christmas newsletters, and those think the first type should be shot. Or at least soundly whipped with used Christmas cards.

I confess: my wife and I are charter members of the first type.

Ever since our children were small, we have found that sending a little family update to people we haven’t seen in years is a fine way to communicate. And we always appreciated the ones we got in return.

Even so, I mentally wince (not having been whipped with cards yet) when the newsletter naysayers start up every year. Somebody is sure to claim it’s just trite. OK, maybe it is, but I like it.

We were putting Christmas away last week when I was struck by the connection between those much maligned newsletters and a couple of recent events.

The first was the horrible tsunami that struck South Asia. It was a disaster which has captured our attention, seared our imaginations and encouraged our compassion. Because of press deadlines, the last issue of The Catholic New World was only able to report on the first bits of news. This issue offers much more complete and up-to-date reports.

However, the disaster was hardly the first to wreak such death and devastation. Why have we reacted so positively this time?

It’s because modern communications—satellites, TV, tourist videos, e-mail and near-instantaneous cell phones—have brought the sad images into our homes. Even a generation ago, such remote calamities (and there were a lot more remote places than today) might have taken weeks or months to come to the attention of people half a world away. And by then they would have lost a sense of immediacy.

Today, we’re riveted by videos of walls of water overrunning beaches, buildings and people. And we are encouraged to open our hearts and pocketbooks to the victims. Catholic Relief Services, for instance, is channeling donations to the area at a record pace.

The other event is the arrest of the man suspected of the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., 40 years ago. I remember that crime; it shocked the nation and it shocked me. Even though little has been in the news over those four decades, the current reports brought it all back—the anger, the feelings, the disbelief that people could be so inflamed over something as right as belief in racial equality.

That sort of prejudice, I think back now, was part of why my wife and I, both children of the ’60s, ended up with a multiracial family. But that’s another story.

The thread running through all of this—from Christmas newsletters to devastating tsunamis to racial injustice—is one of connection.

People who are disconnected from one another are less likely to be affected by the pain—or the joy—of others. I was connected to that 1964 crime by my ’60s naivete and idealism. We all have been connected to the human misery in South Asia by modern communications.

And, yes, my wife and I feel connected to people we haven’t seen in years, old neighbors whose children grew up with ours, distant relatives across a continent or new friends met briefly on vacations in other countries.

Connection.

Sometimes, I think, we forget that our faith offers the best example of that connection. That connection is baptism. The sacrament connects us to God, of course, but also to each other. It’s naïve, I know, but I suspect there’d be much less conflict, interpersonal and international, if we understood that better.

(And, gee, if everyone exchanged Christmas newsletters, just imagine how much better we’d all get along!)