Welcome
to Day #19 of A POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR! I trust that all of you have been enjoying the month-long feature
so far. I really hope you are. I love doing these holiday themed blogs
every year, and I find that the closer we get to the end, the more excited I am
for the holidays.
And
believe me, this year has been a challenge to get into the holiday spirit.
Now,
as I mentioned before, different people celebrate different holidays during the
month of December. For people who
celebrate Christmas, it is just six short days away. For those who celebrate Kwanzaa, I think it starts the 26th. And for those of you who celebrated
Hanukkah, I hope it was a great eight days, as your celebrations wrapped up on
the fourteenth.
In
fact, regardless of what you celebrate, I hope you celebrate it in style.
You
know, when it comes down to holidays, and I use Christmas as an example since
that's the holiday that I have grown up celebrating my whole life, there are
certainly modern traditions that we follow.
We exchange presents, we listen to Christmas music, and we sit by the
fireplaces looking to see what is in our stockings. But there's also a religious background to the holiday as well,
and for a lot of families, part of the Christmas tradition is going to church
on Christmas Eve night and singing traditional Christmas hymns and talking
about how Baby Jesus was born in the manger all those years ago.
In
many ways, Christmas Eve mass is one of the few activities that one can
participate in that really allow people to have as authentic of a Christmas as
they can, and while it may not be necessary for all families (my family was
never really the churchgoing type), I do respect those who have attended
Christmas Eve mass and have made it a part of their daily tradition. After all, some of those services in
traditional churches can be quite lovely.
But
have you heard of these so-called "megachurches"? I don't think we have too many of those in
Canada, but in the United States and some other foreign countries, they've
built churches that are almost the size of arenas and can hold thousands of
worshippers. To be honest with you, I
don't agree with that. I'm not that
religious of a person, but I think that megachurches kind of defeat the purpose
of why people go to church in the first place, which I think for most is
because they want to have a personal connection to God. It's kind of hard to have that connection
when you are in a situation that feels like you're about to watch the Super
Bowl instead of a sermon from a pastor.
Now,
imagine if your church that you and your family have attended for generations
was bulldozed to the ground and replaced with a megachurch. Would you still attend, or would you feel
very uncomfortable?
Well,
for little Lisa Simpson, she found herself in a similar position on one episode
of "The Simpsons", and it is this episode that happens to be the
subject of the nineteenth entry in this advent calendar.
It's
an episode entitled "She Of Little Faith", and it originally
aired on December 16, 2001.
So,
the episode is set right around the month of December, and it starts off the
way most Simpsons episodes begin. Bart
and Lisa are watching television and Bart happens to see a commercial for a
model rocket that he of course has to have.
After all, Bart is the biggest fan of explosive devices ever. The problem is that he doesn't have any
money to purchase the rocket, so he swipes Homer's credit card to order
it. But, I'm guessing Homer doesn't
mind too much because before you know it, he's helping Bart and Milhouse build
the rocket...which promptly explodes.
Homer
recruits the help of his nerdy friends from college to design a super powered
rocket (which I might add he only does to try and one-up Ned Flanders) that can
carry a hamster passenger. But when the
rocket proves to be too powerful, the hamster bails and Homer is left trying to
figure out how to get the rocket down.
He decides to shoot the rocket with a shotgun which does work...
...but
when the rocket crashes into Reverend Lovejoy's church and burns the whole
thing down, let's just say it's not one of Homer's finest moments.
Nor
is it a good one for Reverend Lovejoy, who lacks the funds necessary to rebuild
it.
Eventually,
Reverend Lovejoy literally sells his soul to the capitalistic devil himself, C.
Montgomery Burns, alongside his partner in crime, the robotic businesswoman
herself, Lindsey Naegle. Together,
Burns and Naegle build a megachurch in the place of the old style church,
complete with advertising slogans and posters that rival those of Times Square,
and a Jumbotron in the middle of the church.
Not
surprisingly, everyone in Springfield gravitates towards the new church look,
tempted by the promise of comfortable seats and advertising galore. Mainly because as the show has established
many times, the people of Springfield are complete morons. I mean, when even uber-religious Ned
Flanders gets suckered in by the new church, you know he's two Chicken
McNuggets short of a 20-pack.
One
person who is NOT impressed is Lisa Simpson, the little girl who seems like the
only one in Springfield with actual intelligence, and she is so disgusted by
the new church that she outright abandons Christianity for good!
Instead,
she decides that she wants to take up Buddhism after seeing Lenny and Carl
practicing it in Springfield's Buddhist Temple. Even Hollywood actor Richard Gere stops by to educate Lisa on the
wonders of Buddhism, and Lisa is very much convinced that Buddhism is the right
religion for her.
But
Marge is not convinced that Lisa is making the right choice. In fact, Marge acts very out of character in
a way by plotting with Reverend Lovejoy to woo Lisa back to Christianity. The not-so-good reverend tells Marge that if
she uses the Christmas holiday to convince Lisa to go back to Christianity, and
Marge agrees. She does everything to
make the house look like a Christmas card and even manages to get Lisa the pony
that she has always wanted.
(Okay,
okay...so the pony is actually Ralph and Milhouse in disguise...another one of
Marge's despicable methods to try and make Lisa do anything that Marge wants.)
Lisa
manages to see through the ruse though and runs away from home to vent to
Richard Gere about just how much her family tricked her.
Now
pay attention...this is where I drive the point home about not just the
episode, but this whole blog post at that.
Richard
explains that the main goal of Buddhism is to find inner peace within
yourself...but it's also important to respect the
diversity of other religions based on love and compassion!
Therefore,
according to that logic, Lisa can celebrate Christmas with her family without
feeling guilty about it. So, Lisa
decides that she can respect her family for being Christian while still
devoting her whole life to being a Buddhist.
And Marge apologizes for being so...what's the word...manipulative with
her. Seriously, Marge, your
manipulation techniques are best served for Homer or Bart.
Though,
Lisa never DID get her pony in the end.
But
still...what a great episode this was.
For starters, getting Richard Gere as a special guest star was a coup
for the showrunners. And Richard agreed
to be in the episode, provided two things happen. First, Lisa had to utter the words "Free Tibet" (which
didn't really happen in this episode, but I believe happened in another show
later that season). And the second was
that Lisa had to stay a Buddhist for as long as the show stayed on the air.
And
just like the Simpsons promised Paul and Linda McCartney that Lisa would remain
vegetarian for the rest of the series, Lisa has stayed a firm Buddhist.
But
even more importantly, this episode proved that anybody can accept any religion
if they love and respect the person enough.
I think some of our future world leaders - particularly most of those
running for leadership of the Republican Party of America can benefit from
having learned this lesson.
It
also showed that materialism can really put a damper on religious faith. Sadly, much like how most of us see
Christmas these days.
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