Merry Christmas 2008
Dec. 24th, 2008 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arnheimsdomainMerry Christmas to all.
It's been a rough year for us and a there's a stretch of hard road to go, but there is always light on the horizon, and we travel on with faith and in hope.
Even if you don't believe in Christ or New Testament morality, this is the easiest of times in western countries to see how obscenely obsessed with meaningless consumption and competition our society has become and how little happiness they bring.
Everyone knows it's not about selling records and cola drinks, obtaining a new gaming console, bragging to relatives about the promotion, hitting on workmates at the office party, driving drunk or deadening the emptiness with overeating or getting plastered. But lots of us still do it. Nor is it about giving to the proverbial matchgirl today so you can avoid her gaze for the next 364, sending cards with pious messages you don't believe in or turning up to the midnight church service once a year and feeling jolly pleased if they hand out mulled wine or a mince pie afterwards.
It is about ditching pretension (the stable), sacrificing oneself for others (the birth), seeking understanding (the journey of the magi), giving meaningful gifts as tokens (the gifts), opening your mind to the miraculous (the shepherds responding to the choir of angels), admitting there might be something bigger than us out there (the adoration) and not falling for the comfortable lies of the powerful and corrupt (Herod's deceit & massacre of the innocents).
Don't stand for a hypocritical, meaningless Christmas. Don't go through the motions and blame the faith for it: dump the trimmings and create a Christmas you are truly proud of.
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
It's been a rough year for us and a there's a stretch of hard road to go, but there is always light on the horizon, and we travel on with faith and in hope.
Even if you don't believe in Christ or New Testament morality, this is the easiest of times in western countries to see how obscenely obsessed with meaningless consumption and competition our society has become and how little happiness they bring.
Everyone knows it's not about selling records and cola drinks, obtaining a new gaming console, bragging to relatives about the promotion, hitting on workmates at the office party, driving drunk or deadening the emptiness with overeating or getting plastered. But lots of us still do it. Nor is it about giving to the proverbial matchgirl today so you can avoid her gaze for the next 364, sending cards with pious messages you don't believe in or turning up to the midnight church service once a year and feeling jolly pleased if they hand out mulled wine or a mince pie afterwards.
It is about ditching pretension (the stable), sacrificing oneself for others (the birth), seeking understanding (the journey of the magi), giving meaningful gifts as tokens (the gifts), opening your mind to the miraculous (the shepherds responding to the choir of angels), admitting there might be something bigger than us out there (the adoration) and not falling for the comfortable lies of the powerful and corrupt (Herod's deceit & massacre of the innocents).
Don't stand for a hypocritical, meaningless Christmas. Don't go through the motions and blame the faith for it: dump the trimmings and create a Christmas you are truly proud of.
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
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Date: 2008-12-24 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
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