MERRY Christmas!
We live in a culture of plenty. Few, if any, Americans really starve and live on the street. If they do, it is often by choice or weakness, result of drug addiction, disintegrated family and poor education. Even the poor in our country have one or two cars, a family house, and enough to eat all year round.
We live in a culture of diminishing expectations, where the average is just enough, everyone gets a trophy, and no-one demands the best, lest they should be accused of discrimination or some “phobia.” Nonetheless, most of us still keep trying our best without being forced.
We also live in a culture craving and desperate for myths and rituals, as we have seen in the recent demand for a fantastic sequel to Star Wars. Superstition often substitutes religion, because we all must believe in something. Star Wars series fill a void in atheists and agnostics…
No wonder there are so few protests and so little concern in the mainstream media when a principal bans Santa and Merry Christmas in public schools turns into Happy Holidays, and the Bethlehem scene in a shopping mall is replaced with an irregular iceberg symbolizing climate change. Ideology of the left, their political correctness and politics are forced upon us everywhere we go.
Instead of Uncle Scrooge, our “Happy Holidays” tales are supposed to be about “Uncle Plenty” in the form and shape of an aged man with glasses who enjoins us to “Spread the Wealth!” and “Attack Wall Street!” Instead of forgiving Holy Mary we are supposed to look up to the strained, poor actress with a halo around her head painted by the DNC: “Worship me because I am a woman!” Meanwhile, blame goes around – and comes around.
It is no wonder that we are becoming listless, numb, tired of politics to the point of surrender. May this “Holiday” pass in peace… Ah, do you recall the Christmas of our childhood? There were simple presents under the tree, because Christmas was about love and peace and family, and even those presents meant less than the love they represented… There was a resplendent yet simple dinner with the whole family, Christmas carols on the radio, room filled with gentle air of family cohesion and national unity. Evil was on the outside only – and we were always able to put the past behind us and unite against it!
Merry Christmas! Not “happy” but “merry,” and it is more than a “holiday.” Christmas does not mean a break from work or more time to waste vacationing. If we travel, we travel for love, to love. That is what Christmas is about: love, peace, happiness and plenty.
At this time of the year, in all the nations around the world, families gather and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ: Christmas means the Christ’s Mass. Epiphany means the revelation of the Son of God in a human being, Jesus Christ. Have you had an epiphany? One is coming…
To celebrate means to remember where we come from, where we are and how fortunate we have been to have come so far. We must celebrate our health and wealth and even the demands that the world poses upon us, because the meaning of life is in what we do for others.
We do not need to create new rituals and crave for new world orders, different religions or political systems – all we need to do is to scratch our puppy, turn off the TV sometimes, sit down in a quiet room and muse. Socrates could muse for days: standing still in cold weather without food or water. Jesus was even stronger. Our strength lies in our love, our willpower, and our unity.
Some of us may not know how to pray, but there is nothing to a prayer. A prayer can be completely “secular” – because it is the expression of the happiness of the soul, unity with Nature, gratitude for where we are – here and now; and, as Winston Churchill said, that is all we need to succeed in life. Merry Christmas!
