Meaning of Christmas

See also "Season's Cheatings"
by Duo Dickinson at Saved By Design

Last month, my brother Bruce posted an insightful explanation of not only the meaning of Christmas but also the meaning of the so - called War on Christmas.

I had to agree with our friend Mitzi who replied to Bruce, who usually has the last word on everything: "This was so good, you could have written it."

In this case, however, I also want to add my own "two cents worth":

I think the message of Christmas is "Be nice to pregnant women no matter who the father of the baby is and regardless of their legal marital status; and to babies no matter who their parents are. Remember: ". . . When you kiss your little baby, you've kissed the face of God . . . "

And this from The Reverend Nancy Rockwell in her article "No More Lying About Mary":

The Greek word Luke uses for virgin is an unusual one, a very specific word that means she has not yet born a child. Its precise meaning does not indicate sexual innocence. So let’s be clear: the focus is on her uterus. The state of her hymen is not at issue here. . . .

Mary is unmarried when the angel comes. The angel’s invitation and her independent decision tell us Mary does not need permission of clergy – or her parents – to become pregnant. God knows Mary owns her own body. And there is no shame in her decision. Mary is good news for unwed mothers everywhere.

Mary, wanted by God, according to the angel, for her bold, independent, adventuresome spirit, decides to bear a holy child – for a bold agenda: to bring the mighty down from their thrones; to scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away. This is Mary: well-spoken, wise, gritty.

I am a little church

i am a little church(no great cathedral) – i do not worry if
briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying)children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature – i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

E. E. Cummings