Font Rants on Many Subjects

Pope denounces materialism from balcony of marble, gold-domed building in midst of jewel-encrusted religious icons while wearing giant gold cross.

Perhaps he's trying to appeal to my generation's love of irony. What is the real spirit of Christmas? While some of my more pagan friends want us to go back to Saturnalia, or kill a bull in honor of Mithras' birth. While our friends at Fox seems more concerned about the war on Christmas.

Though I'm a liberal; and you're probably expecting me to join in the war on Christams. I'm not going to support it because so far I haven't seen an estimate of the costs of occupying Christmas, and I'm concerned we don't have an exit strategy. I know that some members of the liberal intelligentsia have suggested we would be greeted as liberators; much like we were in France during WWII. Some of my liberal freinds has described how wonderful the world will be with a secular and democratic Christmas and how this would inevitably lead to the modernization of all religious observance. However I think we will face a long and brutal insurgency; and a costly occupation. We will find ourselves tied down; and unable to commit resources elsewhere. I have the premonition that when and if we were to finally pull Jesus out of his spider hole; we would still face long odds and a tough fight.

Instead let us consider this holiday which is older than the reason for the season. Since time began people in the northern hemisphere have celebrated the return of longer days; and prepared for the coming spring. We have held festivals requesting the blessing of God for the new year. We've given gifts and shared in the success we had in the last year. This tradition connects us to our parents and grandparents. As we play Santa at 2am on December 24th we are connected to our children. It is a time to remember that we are one family and one tribe. If we say happy holidays it is because we are a polite people; and would not want to offend our brothers and sisters celebrating Kawanza, The New Year, Hanukkah, etc.

In closing Christmas is naturally the most material of all holidays. Jesus came to redeem the material world. His life validated the creation. The idea of God living as man; suffering as an ordinary man; and dying an ordinary death. Seriously how many people did the Romans put on a cross? Let us celebrate the idea of God living among us in the material world. God having a life that wouldn't really impress most parents (never married, couldn't hold down a job, got arrested by the authorities). [seriously think about this the next time you are asking your kids to be more like Jesus. Now that Harod there was a kid that went places. Rich, rebuilt the Temple, brought about nationwide prosperity and renewal, real estate mogul; there's someone you want your kids to emulate; but back to Jesus.] Jesus lived among us; not a life of opulence, but a life. We killed him. It turned out he was God; but rather than say "You F'ing ingrates kill me and make me live like a pauper in palestine, I'm going to f you up. Gabriel get me the legions of righteousness lets go put a can of whoop as on those biatches."

Rather than this kind of hateful revenge at the ordinary life and miserable death we gave Jesus. God said, "Well that wasn't so bad. This creation thing has its problems but all things being equal I had a nice dinners with my friends. Except for that last one, you'd think with those 30 peices of silver Judas could have at least picked up the check. Anyway I went fishing. I had some really good times in the Galalee, all in all a pretty good life. I'm not saying I'm going back there anytime soon; but I'll let a few billion more souls try it out."

And so we celebrate the renewal of this material world. We celebrate our life in it even when the days are dark and our dreams are all we have. We remember that while the wolf swallowed the sun; the sun had daughter and the daughter will shine in sun's place.

posted by John  # 8:16 PM