With this bonus holiday episode, I revisit a short article I originally wrote for a now-defunct website and republished on Medium back in 2022. Blood and Cigarettes takes us back to Christmas Eve and the trenches of World War I, and how redemption can be found in the unlikeliest of places.

Ever since I heard the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914, it has intrigued me. The poignant tale of the 1914 Christmas Truce serves as a powerful reminder of our shared humanity, even amidst the chaos of war. This was not a truce fiercely negotiated by generals miles from the front, but an impromptu laying down of arms by the battered grunts in the trenches. The collective power of the human spirit reached across the barren no man’s land, transforming it into common ground.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their erstwhile enemies, they offered each other cigarettes, sang Christmas carols, and played football. The next day, they could return to war. Tonight was a different story.

I keep coming back to this story at this time of year (especially this year) because it starkly illustrates the power of storytelling and mythmaking. Myth is not falsehood. We navigate the long night of winter, the dark solstice, with a tapestry of stories and myths patched together through the weaver of time. One thread that weaves its way through them all is our shared humanity. Try as one ideology or another would reject any common association with the other, it is there, a single fiber that binds us together even as we crouch in our trenches of imagined division.

Can we not find inspiration in this tale, questioning our own narratives and the divisions they create? I challenge myself and you, dear listener, to seek common ground, to understand that we all inhabit this planet together, and to embrace our shared humanity.

A New Name for Season Two

As we conclude season one of the podcast, we are transitioning to our new name, Earthbound.

We have many more great interviews and thought-provoking episodes in store for the new season.

Thank you for listening.

Takeaways:

1. The 1914 Christmas truce during World War I exemplified humanity's capacity for empathy amidst conflict.
2. Myths and narratives shape our lives, influencing our values, purpose, and ultimately our actions.
3. In a poignant moment, soldiers from opposing sides united in the spirit of Christmas, transcending their enmity.
4. The human condition is a constant struggle between our better angels and darker impulses, especially in times of strife.
5. This holiday season, we are reminded of our potential to be a light in the darkness, just as those soldiers were.
6. The fleeting peace of the Christmas truce highlights the importance of finding common ground in divisive times.

Resources:

The Story of the 1914 Christmas Truce

Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing.

There is a field.

I will meet you there, roomie.

Battered by a war of mechanized killing the world had never before seen, English and German soldiers entered no man's land to celebrate Christmas.

Often separated by only a few dozen yards, the soldiers climbed out of their miserable frozen trenches.

Erstwhile enemies only moments before they shared Christmas carols, shook hands and exchanged cigarettes.

For a brief time, the reason for the killing and slaughter vanished.

That short lived peace started in areas around Ypres, Belgium, but certainly not along the entire Western front.

Many still died in battle that day.

Our entire lives are built around myths, as grand stories that define values, purpose and meaning.

Myths are the cornerstone of a civilization.

We are a storytelling species.

Whatever motivated young men to take sides, crouch in muddy trenches and shoot at each other was based on a myth, a narrative that burrowed into the human psych and, fueled with the blood of a generation, demanded vengeance and hatred.

But on that day, in the trenches of Europe around Ypres, a better myth took hold, at least for a few and for a short time.

Hours before soldiers fired their rifles and shot their cannons across a desolate no man's land of almost certain death.

Then the killing stopped.

The sound of Christmas carols wafted through the barren ground, tentatively at first, then with more courage, the courage not to fight, to reach across the chasm of war.

No man's land became common ground, shared ground.

Some played soccer, Sorry, rest of the world, football.

But for that fleeting moment, the story these soldiers told themselves foreshadowed the words of JFK decades later.

He said, our most basic common link that we all inhabit this is that.

We all inhabit this small planet.

We all breathe the same air.

We all cherish our children's futures.

And we are all mortal.

If those men could climb out of their trenches of division, violence and hate to meet on common ground, why can't we?

Indeed, we must, of course.

Upon hearing of the sporadic peacemaking on the front, the high command disapproved.

They were concerned the men would lose their killing spirit.

Efforts were taken to ensure it would not happen again as the war dragged on.

Pity.

It is the human condition to struggle between the best and worst impulses we all harbor within us.

In this holiday season and always there is an opportunity for each of us to be a light in the darkness.

Let's double our effort in difficult times to be that light.

Thanks for listening.

If you like what we're doing, please like and subscribe.

And we'll be back in the new year, starting season two under our new name, Earthbound Peace.

Sam.