Christmas Restored

Here’s something I got from a friend of a family member in Canada:

 *Twas the month before Christmas*
*When all through our land,*
*Not a Christian was praying*
*Nor taking a stand.*
*See the PC Police had taken away,*
*The reason for Christmas – no one could say.*
*The children were told by their schools not to sing,*
*About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.*
*It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say*
* December 25th is just a ‘Holiday’.*
*Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit*
*Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!*
*CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod*
*Something was changing, something quite odd! *
*Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa*
*In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.*
*As Targets were hanging their trees upside down*
* At Lowe’s the word Christmas – was no where to be found.*
*At K-Mart and Staples and Penny’s and Sears*
*You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.*
*Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty*
*Are words that were used to intimidate me.*
*Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen*
*On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, onClinton!*
*At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter*
*To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.*
*And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith*
* Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace*
*The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded*
*The reason for the season, stopped before it started.*
*So as you celebrate ‘Winter Break’ under your ‘Dream Tree’*
*Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.*
*Choose your words carefully, choose what you say*
*Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

 

PS

I wish I’d read this sentence from Ron Ferguson’s Monday column in the Herald before I wrote the previous post:

‘The Trojan worm of racism, once downloaded, can infect the mental and moral hard disk.’

Autumn

Seems as if we’re having a bit of an Indian Summer over the last few weeks, which compensates in part for a very soggy July and August. Nevertheless, we’ve reluctantly put away the garden furniture and accepted that it’s definitely autumn: we had our meal in the garden exactly twice this year. Hence the change to the seasonal header. It’s a picture of a cranberry harvest in British Columbia.

Mouse heaven

La cuesta de enero

It means literally ‘the hill of January’ in Spanish. You could render it as ‘the uphill slog/trudge of January’. The excitement of Christmas is over, we’re all tired, the yearly bills come in this month, the worst of the winter is still to come, and we’ve got to get back to work.

Nevertheless, some of my memories of January are of occasional balmy days (‘false spring’, it’s sometimes called), and a different quality in the light as the days begin to lengthen (not so you’d notice, at least not for a while).

It can’t be winter for ever.

So, a happy New Year to both our readers.

Do I know you?

Yet again, I’ve been reminded of how little we know about people we thought we were fairly close to. I’ve spent the morning with a family preparing for the funeral of a much-loved member of our congregation, whom I thought I knew reasonably well. As has so often happened before in similar circumstances, a whole new vista of a complex and creative life opened up, gifts displayed in the person’s youth and middle years, which were obscured in old age by infirmity, memory loss, diminishing of the personality.

A reminder of the unfathomable mystery of being human.

Be vigilant

In the midst of the euphoria about the American election, this is a salutary reminder.

Lest we forget

Welcome, everybody!

I’m starting this new blog just after Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. I tend to be somewhat ambivalent about Remembrance. Of course it is right to honour those who paid a high price for such imperfect liberties as we enjoy today. I could hardly believe otherwise, since both sides of my family were directly involved, and one person made the supreme sacrifice.

Nevertheless, isn’t it time just to have a simple service of remembrance, thanksgiving and penitence, rather than something that can so easily turn into a display of military triumphalism? I say ‘penitence’ because for a long time we have concentrated on military casualties at the expense of the civilian victims. There are no war memorials in Rwanda, and the prisoners in Guantánamo, whatever they may have done, are also casualties of the so-called ‘war on terror’.

To forget the nameless victims is to deny their precious humanity.