CHRISTMAS

I'm going to attempt to practice a little of what I hope I preach. For me and my family and most of my friends December brings us Christmas Day and the celebration of the birth of the Savior of the world. I don't believe Jesus of Nazareth was born in December, but that is the tradition of what is one of the oldest Christian religions in the world. I am not concerned with the details of how December 25th became the traditional date of the Savior's birth, for me it just is. And it is an event worth celebrating. Whether a person believes in it or not Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind. His birth was so significant that our calendar is dated from the event of his birth. 

For me it is a sacred event whenever it occurred and most modern scholars of religious history agree that the birth of Jesus Christ was most likely in the Spring of the year and not Winter. Interestingly Muslims also revere the birth of Jesus and acknowledge that he was born of a virgin and he is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Apparently they do not believe he is the Son of God, but a valiant prophet of God. They don't believe he was crucified, but was miraculously rescued by God and taken to heaven. Thus relatively few of them observe any Christmas traditions. 

Of course Jews are a special class of people. The Jews murdered Jesus of Nazareth for testifying that He is the Son of God and the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. I cannot join the Muslims in their hatred of the Jews because God the Father will execute His judgement on them when he is ready. He has commanded us to love all of His children, which includes Jews and Muslims, as well as Christians who trespass against us. Which of course is what Jesus taught us to do during his ministry on earth. 

No matter what we believe we are all mortals, born into mortality to live the best life we know how, and perhaps when the Judgement Day arrives that will be enough. All Christians are taught to treat all of God's children with love and respect. That's a tough bar to achieve and most of us fall short unfortunately, including me. Because I try my best to obey God's commandments I try to be careful about my judgements of other people. My goal is to avoid passing judgement on other people because I recognize that I don't really know anyone well enough to pronounce them as 'good people' or 'bad people'. It has been my experience in life to have known some people who I thought were 'good' people only to find out later that in their private lives and the way they treated family and business associates when outside of my view they were truly abusive. And I've known some people that I thought of as 'bad' people who turned out to be involved in much more positive activities than I had known about previously. 

In my view God judges us as to our worthiness to be near Him. He will decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell not me. And that brings me to the more worldly topic of politics. I have a love/hate relationship with politics. I love studying history and forming opinions on which candidates for office I prefer and which propositions I support such as man caused global warming, transgenderism, and others. Such discussions really get people fired up to the point where I'm pretty sure most of us will sometimes say things we don't truly believe. Setting political party aside we are all just people. In our case we are American people; we were born here or we moved here and later became citizens or attained some other legal resident status. Our immigration laws are so complex that I think very few people really understand them. 

And politics can really goof up a good conversation. Sometimes we just have to respect each other and agree to disagree. We are in fact all in the same family. The person who just murdered four students in Idaho is related to them. Their time on earth is finished, the murderer will continue to have to live with his or her foul deed. I believe that murderers will have a lousy time come the day of judgement, but I still have to have compassion for them. During our recent election cycle I heard people of one party saying that if their party didn't prevail democracy was over. If that's really what they believe then America is doomed. Very few problems have to be solved immediately and there are even fewer problems that can only be solved in one way by one person. 

Some Americans have claimed that the Supreme Court has to be changed because the court rendered a judgement they didn't agree with. The opposing party did agree so people in that party have to be evil. Each party claimed the other party opposed our system of laws and was therefore a danger to our way of life. People on each side seemed to be claiming to be superior to the other when in fact we are all fallible. We are all wrong a great deal of the time so let's take a step back and start looking at the issues we are facing whether it be potential world war, catastrophic global warming, abortion, you name it. 

Let's stop making everything personal and recognize that we all really want the same thing, our only real difference is in the way we go about achieving the goal. Not that many decades ago we all believed that. We respected each other's opinions even if we didn't agree with them. We accepted the fact that America was an exceptional country which it is. We just do things better when we are being Americans. I'm not making things up just to make myself feel superior to someone else, I simply realize that because of the American Revolution the entire world is enjoying a more civilized existence. 

European nations are no longer living under the threat of a king who decides everyone's fate. Where kings still exist they are mostly figureheads with no real authority. They are spokespeople for their countries and their citizens in many cases revere them. We no longer hear kings or queens shouting "Off with their head!" in a fit of indignation over some infraction. In most European countries prisons are more humane and capital punishment has practically been abolished if not by statute then by practical arrangement. The American people are not responsible for the discovery of every modern convenience or machine but we are responsible for making it possible for even common people to enjoy them.

British soldiers while fighting the colonists looked upon the quality of American farms and houses, and furniture and swore at the lack of gratitude our ancestors had for the king who had allowed them the privilege to own land  and live such comfortable lives when in fact the king hadn't allowed anything. Our ancestors risked their lives to come to this land and then risked them again by just staying here and learning to deal with foul weather and crops that were reluctant to grow. Many people literally starved to death and still more came to take advantage of the open space and seemingly free land. They were brave and strong people looking for freedom from the bondage imposed by their monarchs

Eventually they built one of the greatest civilizations, if not the greatest, the world has ever known and it's worth keeping. So let's try and forget party affiliation and identify issues we can work on together. No one has all of the answers, but working together we can continue to make improvements. No one is going to get everything they want so let's just concentrate on getting something done that helps as many people as possible. Compromise is not a dirty word it is necessary. When one group steps up and claims they have all the answers and their solution to a problem is the only way to save the country we need to have the courage to tell them they are wrong. 

My plea today is for cooler heads to prevail. Step back from your hard line stand whatever it is and ask yourself if you really cannot bend a little. If you can't, if the two major parties really can't get along then this great nation really is in for a very tough time. If we can't work together we stand to lose everything and if the United States of America fails the whole world goes down.