With a week to go

Christmas is coming.

A feast of hope. Depending on how one measures things it is the third, or fourth, most important feast of the liturgical year. Apart from that, however, even for the devout it is the most joyful. Part of that is the compacted length of it. Lent is forty days, and Eastertide another forty beyond that.

Advent is four Sundays, and the Feast of Christmas is twelve days (though it lingers, in the Church, until the 2nd of February), though most call it quits before Boxing Day.

Easter (the most important feast) lacks something. I think it lacks the sense of rebirth and hope that comes from the innocence of the Nativity. Easter is full of grim tidings, the whiff of the grave is upon us. None of that scent (save the myrhh of the wise men, alluded to in a few carols) taints the dark nights of the Christmas season.

So, with that in mind, I offer up a song. Recent in vintage, and less than cheerful in sentiment, though full of passion, and love and hope.

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants’ windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They’ll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all god’s graces
And the birth of the rebel jesus

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber’s den
In the words of the rebel jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel jesus.


Jackson Browne, and the Chieftans

The Bells of Dublin (an album everyone ought to own, at least if they have to deal with Christmas. Elvis Costello's St. Steven's Day Murders is precious, Anthony Burgess' reading, the ceilidh medley [with a glorious Boar's Head Carol] Derek Bell on the harp, Paddy Maloney's whistle, and a joyful sense of toegetherness in all the pieces make it worth the money, and more than).

If I forget to say it between now and then, enjoy your holidays, take time to smell the pine trees, light a candle (so much better than cursing the darkness) do some random kindess; and try to keep the flame alive, until next year; when you can rekindle it anew.

Something to ponder

I've been ranting about the aims, policies and potential of the radical right/relegious types to do damage to the country.

But I am a fairly (these days, and for an American) liberal fellow, so I am expected to have such silly thoughts. Chuck Baldwin isn't (and a hat tip to kibbles for pointing this out to me). If he's concerned, my fears seem less ill placed.

I AM A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN, AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT SCARES ME TOO

have marched and protested against abortion clinics. I have led several pro-life rallies and even led our church to construct A Memorial To Aborted Babies. I have conducted small and large (some drawing crowds numbering in the thousands) pro-life, pro-family rallies and meetings in the Pensacola area and in many towns and cities across the state of Florida.

When Ronald Reagan was running for President, I helped Dr. Jerry Falwell register more than fifty thousand new conservative voters in my state. I have attended White House functions with former President Reagan and former Vice President George H.W. Bush.

I supported and defended Chief Justice Roy Moore and his fight to display a Ten Commandments monument at a pro-Ten Commandments rally in Montgomery, Alabama and even on national television.

I am an annual member of the National Rifle Association and a life member of Gun Owners of America. I have been the featured speaker at several pro-Second Amendment rallies....

When people are told that they are voting "Christian" by voting for Republican Party candidates, it is being intimated that they are voting non-Christian by voting for any other candidate. This is not only silly on its face, it is downright dangerous!

I don't remember anyone saying people voted "Christian" when they elected the outspoken Christian candidate, Jimmy Carter, President. Yet, Carter, in his personal life, demonstrated as much, if not more, Christianity than does George W. Bush. If you recall, Carter even taught Sunday School in a Southern Baptist Church while President....

The willingness of the Religious Right to give President Bush king-like subservience is easily seen in the way they demonize anyone who dares to oppose him. This is very unnerving.

Are we heading for a modern day religious inquisition, this one led not by the Catholic Church but by the Religious Right? Are we witnessing the type of marriage between Church and State that America's founders originally feared?

I used to believe that liberals were paranoid for being fearful of conservative Christians gaining political power. Now, I share their trepidation....

Let's be honest, I don't care for this man's politics. I don't share his vision of religion. I think he has desires for intrusions of church into state.

But, looking at his last paragraph, I can say I am willing to have him on my side in this fight, because I think he will be an honest opponent, if the playing field is level.

Of course, the sad truth is, neither George W. Bush nor the Republican Party in Washington, D.C. represents genuine Christian or even conservative principles. If they did, they would take their oaths to the Constitution seriously and then neither liberals nor conservatives would have anything to fear, for the U.S. Constitution protects the rights and freedoms of all men.