Some, like Rudolph, long to be loved, accepted
Every year I see the holiday season in a different light.
This Christmas I am troubled by the story of “Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer.”
On the surface, it’s just a silly, seasonal song with a catchy tune. Down below, however, there’s the covert message to all who are different that “you can’t be part of the larger community until we need someone ‘like you’ to save the world.”
I’m serious. Bear with me while I make my case.
Rudolph grows up with constant ridicule. “Hey look! It’s dim-bulb!” “Can’t sleep without the light on?” “Deer in the headlights!”
Presumably he has loving parents who comfort their sobbing child when he runs home after another wretched day at school. “Mom, Dad. Why can’t I be normal? Why do I look funny? Why was I even born?”
At the heart of this story is a fixture of so much Western literature and film. Supposedly, Rudolph is an outcast living in the shadows just waiting for the day he can prove himself to the world – by saving it – and thus rejoin the herd.
But, in reality, the Rudolph’s of the world may grow up to have poor self-worth and diminished social skills. They will internalize and rationalize their youth, blaming themselves or others for their place in life. They may become depressed, abuse drugs, alcohol or others. They may become overachievers or underachievers, anything from brain surgeons to beggars.
It’s easy to imagine Rudolph, shunned from an early age, turning into a moody teenager who hangs around with others who blog about the Columbine massacre and create videos about death.
When approached by Santa Claus on that famously foggy Christmas Eve, he responds: “No one ain’t done nothing for me, Fat boy! You want me to work with those jerks, who made fun of me all my life? What’s in it for me?”
Of course, victims of social ostracism don’t all end up at the shopping mall with a rifle. But neither is it very likely they will all be called on to save Christmas by the very community that pushes them away. Life, its circumstances, and the human response to them vary widely.
Especially where there is physical or emotional abuse, children often engage in behavior therapists call “magical thinking”: in the real world they feel insignificant and helpless; in their magical world they feel special and powerful. The challenge as they enter adulthood is reconciliation of the two.
This is one of the themes of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Harry’s magical world can be seen as an orphan’s refuge from an abusive childhood with his aunt and uncle. As the seven-volume series unfolds, Harry must come face-to-face with his past to become a full-fledged adult, to graduate from a world of victimhood and anger into an emotionally healthy and living present. He must escape from a closet of grief and despair into a wider world of love and acceptance. He must learn that, not only is the world full of darkness and light, but his own heart is filled with both, as well. And he must learn to make correct, though difficult, choices.
Both Harry’s and Rudolph’s stories are extreme examples. Still, the holiday season is a struggle for many precisely because it brings the pain of their dysfunctions into sharp focus. On one hand is the powerful primal desire to reconnect as a family, on the other is the discomfort caused by the mother who never let her daughters grow up, the alcoholic father, and the grandfather who never remembers your name.
Each holiday season, the challenge for so many of our friends and neighbors is integrating their deep pockets of unresolved pain, anguish, and sorrow with an even deeper, heartfelt desire to embrace the season’s messages of love, hope, family and redemption.
I believe that we, like Rudolph, want to be loved for who we are, without exception, and without having to save the world on a foggy Christmas Eve.