I find it more annoying than I would really love to admit how all of US Christian & post-Christian culture declares “the holidays” over starting tomorrow. Epiphany isn’t until Wednesday!!

I care about this not primarily from a sense of liturgical snobbishness—a vice I will NOT claim to be innocent of—but because of how it makes Christianity into a servant of the anti-fat, anti-flesh askesis in which Salvation is Of and For the Toned,

and the particular viciousness of that is landing especially hard in a year when all of us who are fat or disabled or elderly or in any way physically imperfect are being told more loudly & explicitly than ever that our lives are not valued by others.

So the opposition btwn

Christianity: God has become flesh, entering the chaos of humanity as one of us to elevate all of creation; let us celebrate this for 12 days

&

U.S.: Flesh is only good when it is THIS KIND OF FLESH; you are WORTHLESS; PUNISH YOURSELF & worship others!

is striking me with a bit more intensity this go-round of the “It’s January!! NO MORE FEASTING! Time for WORK and FITNESS ONLY!” messages.