Lennon’s Poor Eyesight and My Blindness

 Originally published December 14, 2020. Edited July 25, 2023

 I set the blog aside about a year and a half ago to cut down on the growing internet cacophony during the run-up to the presidential election. I assumed the rhetoric would die down a bit after the election. So much for that. During the interim, I realized semi-retirement was not all it's cracked up to be and started looking for teaching opportunities. As a result, I’m now enjoying teaching 10^th grade English at a nearby public high school. Great students, great colleagues. Here's a story...

It was a couple of weeks ago. My students had just finished one unit and were about to start another. But it was a Friday and, after pushing them pretty hard for the week, I could sense they were restless. They needed a break. Instead of starting something new, I dusted off an online trivia contest I had prepared weeks earlier for just such a day. Twenty-five questions to fill 45 minutes.

The answer to one of the questions was the Beatles, the band John Lennon was a member of. And no, not all the students got it right! It was one of the questions that came with a story to make sure 25 questions could actually fill a 45-minute class.

Each year, fewer and fewer
nativity scenes are appearing
in front of homes as they
compete with snowmen and
reindeer.

I told the story to two classes. Paul McCartney had recalled it in an interview the severity of Lennon’s poor eyesight. When they were in high school, Lennon would hang at the McCartney's many nights - sometimes to write songs, sometimes to just chill. On one of those nights in December, Lennon mentioned that, as he walked home the previous evening, he was amazed to see two men sitting in front of a house, in the snow, hunched over and the and playing chess. The next day, McCartney walked by that same house and saw the same scene. When he saw Lennon later that night, McCartney told him, “Those two blokes weren’t playing chess. It was a nativity display!”

The students' reaction? Dead Silence.

Two classes of high school kids had no idea what a nativity scene is.

I can’t blame the kids, or anyone else for that matter, for not knowing what they don’t know. We don’t know what we are not taught. But you would think that even people who are not religious know what a nativity scene is simply because it’s a part of our culture.

And that’s the issue.

A most treasured heirloom - 
the Casella family's nativity
scene including the stable Tony
built and Connie decorated
right after they were married
in 1947.

As a devout Catholic, I assumed most people understood the substance of the faith symbols of Christmas – or at least that they have substance. I was blind to the fact that culture had given the Magi, the Star of Bethlehem and, yes, the nativity scene, the same meaning as Santa Claus, Rudolph and the Grinch. The Holy Family has the same significance as the grandma after her encounter with a reindeer - just another artifact of the secular culture.

No, this is not a rant against the manufactured, politically motivated “War on Christmas.” This is a recognition that Jesus is merely a nice, reassuring religious symbol, not a living presence who truly resides in all of us. And maybe that’s one of the reasons our culture increasingly values “me” over “we.”

Culture is hard to change. But it is possible to open eyes and change hearts one person at a time. We all need to find our own ways to make sure the meaning behind the nativity scene doesn’t stay frozen and buried under the snow.

Have a warm, wonderful, blessed, and very merry Christmas!