Dear Jesus...

[Albin]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 7:37pm

Why do some people kick off the season of celebration of your birth by trampling some of your children like wild animals at their local Walmart for a $300 laptop?

[Liam]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 7:38pm

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 7:39pm

Dear Jesus,

You are MAGIC!

Love carla.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 7:52pm

Was that picture you just posted taken of you recently?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 8:06pm

Christmas stopped being Christmas years ago. Great impression this gives the rest of the world that people would step over their own mother for a bargain

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 8:41pm

This from selecting a page of the New Testament at random:

"Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?"

(The words of the Lord)
St. Luke 14:34

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 11:08pm

Salt is not good for people with high blood pressure.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 11:18pm

Still, you can say the salt itself is good.

It has lost its savor for one of high blood pressure who should not use it.

This is almost like a koan to ponder its meaning as regards the present shopping celebration of Christmas.

I think the quote's analogy would be that while gift-giving is a good way to express Christian charity (in the old sense of the word meaning love) and a good way to celebrate Christ's birth, that the almost perversion of it into materialism and shopping frenzy takes away the blessedness or savor in the act such that we might ask is there a better way to celebrate the Christmas season...

Other interpretations welcome...

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 11:48pm

As in definition 6., below:

char·i·ty, n. (pl. char·i·ties)

1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.
2. Something given to help the needy; alms.
3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.
4. Benevolence or generosity toward others or toward humanity.
5. Indulgence or forbearance in judging others. See Synonyms at mercy.
6. often Charity - Christianity. The theological virtue defined as love directed first toward God but also toward oneself and one's neighbors as objects of God's love.

[Middle English "charite" coming from Old French meaning "Christian love", from Latin "caritas", affection and "crus", dear. See "ka" in Indo-European Roots.] Updated On: 11/25/05 at 11:48 PM

[jimmirae]

Posted: 11/25/05 at 11:50pm

Possibly because "Jesus" was not born anywhere near December 25th? It was stolen, like most other holidays were, from the older pagan holidays already established. Anyway "Jesus" (Jeshua bin Joseph), I'm still a big fan!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 12:02am

Actually, I think "superimposed" over the old Pagan holidays is more what happened. Certainly the tree tradition was very ancient all over Europe.

(There is a very good discussion of the earlier rituals leading to the idea of sacrifice of the God incarnate on Earth which is mirrored or evolved into Christianity in the classic work The Golden Bough written by the Scot Sir James Frasier. It was first published almost a hundred years ago and it is a wonderful, lengthy tome as my abridged copy is 842 pages including notes.)
Updated On: 11/26/05 at 12:02 AM