Somebody help me, please. No, on second thought: when it comes to religion there is no help for me. I don’t get it. I’m no atheist. But neither do I believe the prevailing myths.
Perhaps even more than politics, religion brings out the best and worst in people.
The hypocrisy and violence perpetrated in the name of religion is well documented and very much alive all around us. The sincere charity and caring and healing done by religious people is also a reality, past and present.
Tradition is important. However, when tradition blinds one to the present.....then what? What do we do? When tradition causes one to act in ways that directly contradict some of the tenets of that same tradition.....what then?
What would Jesus say if he was alive today? Would he be horrified at the ways he has been turned into a celebrity of faith or used for shallow political advantage?
What is Christmas, exactly? I’ve never quite understood. I still don’t. The obvious crassness of the buying/shopping frenzy is nothing new. But what is it? Jesus was a mystery man. From what I have seen and read, nearly everything known about him is apocryphal. The history of the holiday is as varied as history itself and succeeding generations have changed and altered its significance. The date itself may have to do with the winter solstice or the supposed moment of Jesus’ conception or many other ideas put forth over the centuries.
I do love the lights and the trees and seeing children have fun.
I suppose that Christmas for me is seeing an old and close friend successfully donate one of her kidney’s to her ailing daughter this past weekend.
Christmas is helping a client and now friend - who is fighting breast cancer - hang up some sparkling things last night(including two cherubs I re-painted gold) in her glittering living room, drinking some wine and trying to make her laugh, and steering the conversation away from the side of her that is tinged with old-fashioned racist Republicanism. Christmas, I imagine, is seeing her as a person who is suffering and who needs to enjoy life......as we all do.
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