Today I saw wreaths, evergreen circles with red-ribbon bows, tied by more wide, red ribbon to each gray pillar of the imposing, stony facade of the U.S. Treasury building.
The Treasury of the United States of America: the payer of my government employee paycheck, the payee of my tax checks. The forbidding arbiter, conserver, and nexus of this great power’s vast wealth, hung with these simple symbols of ancient faiths: the evergreen hope that the days would stop getting shorter and colder, that crop and animal nurturing warmth would return, and of the newer, pagan co-opting celebration of life in the midst of icy death, God born to share our life and die, but cheat death and live.
The festive green-pillared circles jar, shake, look at me, unblinking eyes, staring me down, judging, asking: Do you buy this wreath on treasury, little on big, simple on complex, honest on lie?