I almost fell out of my seat when I saw Bill O'Reilly's name in my church newsletter.
My minister was talking about the War On Christmas, and how Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl's and Sears were officially endorsing Christmas. I thought that Christmas already had an endorsement deal. For at least the last 1500 years, give or take.
The whole War deal has really annoyed me. Christmas has never come under attack. I figure that other faiths, some of which have been around a lot longer than Christianity, decided they wanted to be of worth as well. I remember saying Merry Christmas until it made no sense when I worked in retail. Yet somehow, Christmas needs to be endorsed, and fought for. Hmmm.
You would think that time would be better spent on finishing up some of the other wars we have going. We seem to be waging a war on peace, a nice traditional Christmas value. If I recall correctly, Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Wal-Mart. Seems lately that all you have to do to be a terrorist is to have heard of them, and not have the proper bumper stickers on your car. Which reminds me of the war on poverty. We supposedly started that one in the Sixties. We were going to eliminate poverty, and hunger, and homelessness. Haven't seen any real progress on that one. And since love for fellow man, and charity, are biggies on Jesus's list, you'd figure more effort would be expended. And how about the war on drugs? That is another one we're still pouring money into. Grandma can't get a cheap prescription to save her life. But we can pour money and time into what has been a fruitless quest to get rid of drugs. Course, we don't help our fellow man by getting him off drugs, helping him solve the problems that started him off. That would be too easy. Instead we warehouse these guys in prison. At least they'll get Christmas dinner, right? That will fulfill our generosity clause...way to go!
The older I get, and the more things we declare war on, the more I lose hope. I have no problem celebrating all of the holidays of the season. On the up side, you add one more party! And maybe, if we open our minds, we can love one another in concrete ways all the time. That was the idea, after all, in Scrooge's keeping Christmas all year long. Not beating people over the head with the idea that their holiday is the only valid one. But giving, and loving, and taking care of one another. With or without Santa...or Bill O'Reilly.
so Merry, Happy, Joyous, Blessed, as I usually say during the holidays. Have a happy Thanksgiving. good night and good luck...stimp
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2 comments:
The commericalization of the holiday season sickens me to the nth degree. It's obvious that many have forgotten the real reason for the season--the birth of Jesus! You're not alone in your assessment of it, Stimp. Besides, since Billo started the war on Christmas, things got out of hand real quick. Look at it this way, the more this idiot spews out his venom on the holiday season, the more our boy is gonna hit him right back! And that's the truth!!
Shelly S.
Agreed!
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