Take Joy!: Dropping Christmas

Words to Consider

I bind myself today to the Holy Powers: Their hands to guide me, Their wisdom to teach me, Their ears to hear me, Their words to give me speech, my heart always to love Them. —Galina Krasskova
"Not to hurt our humble brethren in fur, feather or fin, is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it.” ~Francis of Assisi
Tikkun Olam (roughly translated, I understand, as Heal the World)
“It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” –Rabbi Tarfon.
"And the Bastard grant us, in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding." -- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious-makes you so sick at heart-that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio
"They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." —Eugene Victor Debs
i do it for the joy it brings / because i am a joyful girl / because the world owes me nothing / and we owe each other the world / i do it because it's the least i can do / i do it because i learned it from you / i do it just because i want to / because I want to —"Joyful Girl", Ani DiFranco
"Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life." - Elizabeth Goudge, author of The Joy of the Snow

Sigrdrifa's Prayer

Hail to the Day / Hail to Day’s Sons / Hail to the Night and her Daughters / With loving eyes look upon us here / And bring victory to those who have gathered / Hail to the gods / Hail to the goddesses / Hail to the mighty, fecund Earth / Eloquence and native wit bestow on us / And healing hands while we live

Dropping Christmas

You cannot live in this culture without experiencing how the air is let out of the holiday balloon on December 26. The Magi may not arrive in Bethlehem until January 6, but the culture abruptly drops the whole matter practically before Christmas Day is over....

Almost anybody can be touched emotionally by the birth of a baby. But the church knows and remembers that the baby grew up and became a man who taught a revolutionary ethic of unconditional love and practical forgiveness and who overturned cultural convention by welcoming the marginalized and excluded. The church remembers that the baby grew up and got into trouble with the authorities for living out his notion of what God's kingdom looks like---a new social arrangement without all the old barriers and boundaries, an arrangement in which all are loved and welcomed at the banquet table.

The church remembers that the baby grew up and challenged social convention by forgiving enemies, turning the other cheek, responding to violence not with violence but with love.... The birth is a sign, for people of faith, that God is alive and at work in the world. Christ comes again, is born again, when lives are transformed by his love, when forgiven and restored men and women begin to live new lives in a world that is suddenly new because he was born into it. The culture may drop Christmas like a hot potato, but for faith it is a beginning, not an end.

Source: John Buchanan in The Christian Century, December 25, 2007

Posted at 06:06 AM in reflection | Permalink