An Indiana News Item
 
                        A second-grader at an Indiana public school was
                        “banished” by his teacher after telling his classmates
                        he didn’t believe in God. The 7-year-old was forced
                        to sit by himself during lunch for three days and not
                        to speak to other students because his teacher said
                        his views on religion had offended them. His parents
                        have filed a lawsuit
 

Dear old and new friends,

     Reading the above news item, it seemed to me that the young 7-year-old student’s atheistic belief was far more disturbing to his teacher than to her students because of the way she responded. Why did she impose the severe three-day excommunication, including speaking to his classmates, unless she “feared” he might evangelize them?

     Not surprising his second grade classmates were offended when he told them that God didn’t exist. According to Dr. Justin Barrett of Oxford University, “Children are born believers in a supreme being (God) and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination. He further states if a group of children were abandoned and raised alone on a desert island they would all believe in a God. So the young second-grade atheist’s disbelief must have come from atheistic parents who either enlightened or robbed him.

     Scholars believe from their research that children have a predisposition to believe in a Supreme Being/Creator since they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose. As a result, small children resist the idea of evolution and are believers in creationism. Believing in a Supreme Being, depending upon the circumstances of your birth and childhood, may be addressed as Allah, Krishna, Yahweh or God. We enter this world believing in God, which isn’t the same as having faith in God—which is trusting God. From our education in Christianity we acquire faith…and with it fear! It’s a dreaded fear of God, of offending by sin and being tortured in Hell’s raging fires.

     In life’s progression then comes the radical earthquake of adolescence’s passionate sexual urges, the embracing of evolution and the radical expanding of one’s frontiers with the infinities of the Space Age, not to mention today’s Internet and the array of technological marvels. Meanwhile, the majority regardless of their graduate and post-graduate degrees lack any education in religion and theology, so their basic understanding of God remains that of childhood or early adolescence.

     At the same time, we are witnessing the slow death of institutional religion as major churches suffer ever-decreasing members and regular attendance at church services. At this moment we are also in the midst of a universal secularism which is a new untried experiment in human history, and only time will tell its consequences. In the midst of this confusing flux, you personally can be struggling whether you believe in or have faith in God!

     In a time of personal crisis, you can pray with faith, calling upon your loving God for help. And when church authorities use man-made doctrines in God’s name to prevent people from being whom God made them to be, you can find yourself to be an agnostic—not a disbeliever, but a holy doubter.

     Basically, religion, like the arts, is an attempt to find meaning and value in this life. So whenever you question the value of religion, briefly recall its purpose. Then wherever you are on your life journey—whether only halfway through or perhaps nearing the end—and you seriously wonder about your relationship with God, find joy and hope in psychologist Ernest Becker’s wise observation, “In our innermost soul we are still children, and remain so throughout life.”

Dear old and new friends,

     Stories have been our teachers since prehistoric days and fairy tales were our very first teachers before preschool or kindergarten. Before they were Disneyized the old fairy tales like Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood taught critical life lessons. We can even at our present age benefit by recalling Little Red Riding Hood. But why should we? First consider a recent email from FBI director James Coney that informs you, “The FBI in conjunction with other investigation agencies and global intelligence networks has found that you have an over-due payment of ten million, three hundred thousand US dollars in Citibank. Please reply.” Secondly, in recent years Bernie Madoff pulled off the largest fraud in U.S. history of almost $65 billion scammed from his clients. Scams like these appear daily in your mail, on the telephone or at your door in thousands of different disguises. Shrink yourself down to a child student again to study this summary of Little Red Riding Hood.

     The girl has no name other than of her favorite red velvet hat (in some old versions) or hooded cape that had been given to her by her grandmother. Sent by her mother with a basket of food for her sick grandmother, she was admonished, “Don’t wander off the road. Go directly through the woods on it to your grandmother.” Along the way Little Red Riding Hood meets the Wolf who entices her to enjoy wandering amongst fields of beautiful flowers alongside the road. The Wolf asks her where she is going, and she tells him…even giving him directions to her grandmother’s home. Then the Wolf says he also will visit her and departs as she continues to leisurely picks flowers. The Wolf pretends to be Little Red Riding Hood, enters the house and eats the grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood suddenly recalls the purpose of her journey and returns to the road going straight through the woods to her grandmother’s house.

     Arriving she knocks on the door, and the Wolf now wearing grandmother’s nightgown and lacy cap uses a false voice telling her to come in. Using the same imitation voice, the Wolf invites her to come join him in bed, and she takes off her clothes (in the original 17th century version) and climbs into bed with the Wolf. “My, but you have long hairy arms,” says Little Red Riding hood. “All the better to embrace you dear,” replies the Wolf. This exchange continues with his long legs, big ears, eyes and finally his big teeth. Then the Wolf falls on Little Red Riding Hood and devours her.

     Either Little Red Riding Hood was stupid or she wanted to be seduced! The taking off of her clothes says she is now of the age intrigued by sex. Desires for money, sex, anxieties about our health or a quest for a mate all make us easily gullible victims. Experts also tell us that we are instinctively trusting people; if the swindler’s story is plausible and compelling, we presume it is true.

     Warning: In times of social instability, change and economic uncertainty such as ours today, swindlers, con artists, chiselers and hustlers abound. Our technological age is ideal for them to have access through the Internet and email to a vast range of a potential “gull” (old term for a foolish, easy deceived man, hence the term gullible). Be constantly on guard for the insincere story which is a challenge since we ourselves engage in deception. According to a study, we tell a lie on an average of three times in a 10-minute conversation on topics such as how we feel, our health, complimenting another on articles of clothing, food, etc. We know advertisements lie to us, as do politicians, so perhaps it is easier for us to be fooled by the larger dangerous lie of the con artists.

     Also in anxious times of disruptive change, like those in past history we can be hoodwinked (monks beware: the term comes from having your hood pulled over your eyes) by holy hustlers whose churchy religion sells hope now and at death. Cassocked or robed hustlers usually have been swindled themselves before, so make convincing merchants of mystical mischief. In the Middle Ages monks drilled holes and inserted tubes in Blessed Mary statues to make them appear to weep so to draw pious gulls to donate sizeable sums. Real religion is the endless quest in our messy world to find the Divine. Churchly religion finds God in miracles of seeing Jesus’ face in a pizza or the Divine in supposed miraculous visitation of Mother Mary on a neighbor’s garage roof.

     Beware of being spiritually greedy. Be wary of being piously blind to churchy religion that encourages judgment of others or a hatred of or aversion to sinful others, instead of embracing unconditional loving found in real religion.

Dear old and new friends,

      In our last reflection we proposed jettisoning our fears of yesterday that we carry in our backpacks into this new year 2016, even the really old ones, relics of our cave dwelling years. It is important as we begin to consider how in the process of getting rid of fears we acknowledge some of them are valid, healthy and should be respected, say like our ancient fear of lightning.

     If you have fears preventing your full enjoyment of life, naturally you ask how to liberate yourself of them? The eminent psychiatrist Karl Menninger said once, “Fears are educated into us and can, if we wish, be educated out.” Each of us is different and we’ve had different fear educations, but our commonly educated fears are snakes (yet only a few species are poisonous), people who have different color skin than ours and strangers. Politicians aware of these embedded learned fears use them to encourage fear laden prejudice against aliens and those with black or brown skins. The Church also is a teacher that instills fearful intolerance of those of different sexual orientations.

     Among the fears we lug along with us in our human backpack are relics, prehistoric ones. No one educated us to be afraid of the dark. That is tattooed in us from the time when wild animals lurked outside the circle of fire of our ancestors. A dark bedroom when we were small and defenseless was terrifying since it hid all kinds of imaginary monsters. And after we can sleep peacefully in darkness without a small light, that old fear is resurrected as natural and healthy when at night we walk alone down a darkened street. A fear of one age should be educated out of us, while later in life it needs to be preserved in another life situation. Gun merchants make a very good living off fears of dark skinned African Americans and Hispanics, and fears of strangers.

     As Dr. Menninger wisely said, with our fears educated into us by parents, politicians and merchants selling all kinds of security devises, we can “if we wish” become our own teacher and educate ourselves out of them. Astute, wise Menninger knew we can unconsciously be afraid not to be afraid…which is to be liberated! The wise teacher of Nazareth Jesus is called a savior, which is a liberator, who taught freedom from fears by challenging us not to fear but to love what we fear.

     Actually, you and I have been self-teachers since we were children. At an early age we self-learned that fire can burn and be painful, and in our later teens to wisely take only calculated risks since some risks were stupid and could be lethal. And now regardless our age we must teach ourselves to discard negative, opposed to the fullness of life, fears. But how? A good student listens to the teacher and wishes to learn.

     So listen and respond to the voices of fears admonishing and scolding you. Teach yourself to talk back when an anxious voice urges you not to do something; disobey it, contradict it and “do whatever it is.” Education needs to be repetitious, so your corrective voice must be repeated, repeated and repeated until it is no longer necessary. This emptying of the mind is an inner resource of peace to deal with fears.

     The oldest way of teaching was telling stories, and this one is from ancient Japan:

     In the end of the 17th century Lord Yama-ro-tuchi went on an official trip and took with him his tea master, a renowned instructor in the art of tea. They stayed at a royal villa, and one day Lord Yama-ro-tuchi urged him to go for some sightseeing, and the tea master departed attired as a samurai with two swords. While on his way he came upon seated on a large stone a muscular Ronin (a samurai who has lost his attachment to a lord and often lived by robbery) who said, “Seeing you are a samurai, I would consider it an honor if we engaged together in sword play.”

     The tea master was fearful and didn’t know what to do, saying, “I am a tea master only dressed as a samurai, and am completely unfamiliar with swordsmanship.” The Ronin grinned, as his real motive was to rob this traveler. The heart of the tea master was flooded with the fear of finding it impossible to escape and not wishing to die an ignominious death that would shame his Lord. Suddenly, he remembered that shortly before he had come upon this large Ronin he had passed a swordsman training school near Uyeno. Instantly he decided to return there to learn how to honorably die, and said, “If you insist, we will engage in swordsmanship, but first I must attend to an errand for my master. I will come back here, but please allow me the time for this duty.”

      The Zen master at the training school listened to the story of the tea master and was impressed he wanted to die an honorable death, and said, “I will teach you, but first may I have a cup of your tea?” The tea master was pleased, and entered into the elaborate ceremony of the tea ritual forgetting all about his approaching tragedy. The Zen sword master suddenly cried out, “You have no need to learn the art of death! Your state of mind you presently have is sufficient for you to cope with that despicable Ronin. All you must do is what you’ve done here in the tea ceremony.”

     Returning to the brawny Ronin he apologized for the delay, and then began to repeat his tea ritual. He calmly took off his outer coat, tranquilly tied his sleeves with a string and gathered up his skirt. Then with serenity drew his sword and raised it high over his head. At this incompressible peaceful behavior of a once timid tea master, the Ronin robber dropped to the ground and begged his pardon before jumping up and fleeing away.

Dear old and new friends,
    
     As we enter into this new week of a new year the journalist Mignon McLaughlin reminds us, “The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it.” Regardless if you are trying to live differently in this new year or are simply going on with life as you did in old 2015, check your backpack. Not only children going to school or hikers wear a backpack, each one of us does. We carry and are affected by our past experiences and past thinking. Does that mean we are supposed to examine our thoughts about life back in 2000 or 1960?

     Further back than that even, for we carry on our backs attitudes, thinking and fears that go back to when we dwelled in caves. The Ice Age began 2.6 million years ago when glaciers and ice sheets covered for a prolonged time northern parts of the world. Seeking shelter from the bitter cold and icy winds, it is believed former tent dwelling hunters inhabited caves for protection. If you live where bitter biting cold, snow and ice are common this time of year in North America, you can identify with your most ancient ancestors seeking the warmth of a fire in the shelter a cave. Scholars believe we today are still hardwired with some of the attitudes and thinking of those prehistoric times!

     This brief review of history is directly related to our daily needs and those of the poor. While the Salvation Army bell ringers aren’t collecting for the poor now, the daily needs of the unfortunate are just as real, if not more so than at Christmas. Compassion is a 365-day attitude of the heart, not just at the holidays. However, after all the many requests for our generosity in the days before and at Christmas, we can easily suffer from what psychologists call “psychic numbering.” This causes us to see but not feel, and to justify our lack of compassion by saying, “I gave at the holidays.”

     Take the case of a small child in dirty clothes and face who stops you on the street and begs you for help. Moved by compassion you reach for your billfold. Then another identically poor dirty child appears begging for help. Suddenly your loving compassion suffers a serious puncture, if not a major leak. Because of what’s hidden in your backpack it doesn’t take ten other children for us to react negatively…only one more! It seems we are prehistorically psychologically wired to help only one person at a time! Also studies show we are less inclined to donate to large scale relief for some major disaster because of cave day thinking such as “My gift is only drop in the bucket.”

     For a really fresh “new” year, lighten your load and enliven your life by disposing of as much as possible of your back pack. Keep your mind up to date with the times as you jettison cave dwellers’ fears and discard childhood worries in a personal evolution of your mental habits.

Dear old and new friends,

     Wishes for a "Happy New Year" are exchanged these days with neighbors, strangers on the streets, clerks in stores and echoed from out of television sets. A happy, blissful, joyful, cheerful and delightful 2016 is for many people however unattainable if not impossible. For most the only difference of this coming New Year will be its number; otherwise it will smell like, look like and most of all “feel” like old 2015.

     Every 13 minutes in our country someone feeling life is too painfully sad will take their own life! While homicides have fallen by half since 1991, suicide is now the second leading killer for those ages 15-34. To ask why this is the case is politically impolite or incorrect for taxes must be cut, not increased. “Cut back on spending” is the righteous battle cry of the conservative right…and the reason we have closed or curtailed local treatment for the mentally ill. Depressed people, instead of finding treatment in a local mental facility, find themselves in homeless shelters, jails or pondering suicide.

     The fellow citizens suffering depression we walk pass on the street, shop among or work with don’t wear signs signaling their unhappy dejected condition. They are prisoners of a most horrifying penitentiary—one with no exits! A human being can survive almost anything as long as she or he can see the end of it in sight, and insidiously depression makes its victims feel there is no escape, except death. The author Eugene O’Neill spoke for a large majority of us when asked to write about happiness replied, “I will write about it if I ever happen to meet up with that luxury.” To wish “Happy New Year” is wishing an unattainable luxury to those seriously depressed, angry with another, aching with a broken heart, in a bitter divorce or unemployed.

     “Happy New Year” is like “Thank you for your service” spoken to soldiers in uniform in public gatherings or airports. Military personnel report when they hear that it sounds like a platitude, a hollow expression. The active military, who are only 0.5% of the population, report they feel civilians regard them as guard dogs, a necessary evil. They also feel whenever civilians thank them for their service that unspoken is “I’m glad you serve, so I don’t have to…or my kids won’t have to.”

     Expressions of gratitude or wishes for a happy new year must flow from your heart and not just your lips. As children we learned from fairy tales that wishes are very powerful, so look before you wish. Look to see beneath as best you can whoever is standing before you, or use your imagination for each person has a story. It may be one of heart wrenching sadness, of fear, loneliness or exclusion because of their sexuality or physical appearance. It may be one of family discord, broken relationships or a seemingly unattainable bright future. Then inhale, filling your greeting with soul and love, and whatever you intuit will bring happiness to that person.

     Think un-American, since an old fashioned USA dogma is happiness and contentment come to those who work hard, have the right attitude and strive for self-improvement. This conviction undergirded a recent Republican politician’s solution to poverty which wasn’t new jobs with equality of wages. His proposal was sending poor people to happiness courses to improve their attitudes!

                                 Three questions for your meditation

     1. Do you think you need to attend a happiness course to improve your attitude?

     2. Can anyone wish another what they themselves do not possess?

     3. Does expressing a wish fulfilling “Happy New Year” have more potency when you are a happy and contented person in solidarity with the employed, the less fortunate, and depressed?

Dear old and new friends,
 
     Christmas celebrates the birth of one with many titles: Prince of Peace, God-Hero, Wonder-Counselor, Father-Forever, Son of God…and the most meaningful, “Jesus, the Erotic Lover.” The old religious hierarchy was flabbergasted when God decided to exit heaven and take on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth and all earthy things. Christmas was so scandalous—God with sexuality and human needs and hungers—that religion attempted to deny the reality by burying it under piles of laws, complicated theologies and a public worship that actually proclaimed the exact opposite. It wasn’t until the fourth century that the Christian Church celebrated the Feast of the Nativity—Christ’s birth, Christmas—and then only with opposition.

     What made an unwrapped Christmas so shocking was that it was a feast of God in the human flesh of an illiterate Jewish village craftsman who wasn’t some new prophet, but rather the living, breathing All Holy One, the Supreme Spiritual Being dwelling in a human body’s fragile flesh. Was this amazing feat the result of God being convinced of the old saying, “Humans can’t love what they cannot put their arms around”? If so, the Almighty One became huggable!

     To understand the title of “Jesus, the Erotic Lover” recall that “God is love” and that Jesus was the en-fleshment of that Divine Mystery. He didn’t become some disembodied ethereal love, but rather an earthy and deeply sensual person with all the needs, desires, feelings, conflicts and cravings we experience. Theologian Teilhard de Chardin used fire to illustrate love; that intensely scorching blaze that enflames sexual intimacy with such attraction, as well as bliss. Along with other recent scholars, Teilhard believes sexuality is the creative core of a spirituality and theology for a God of Divine Eros, and not the old detached, aloof Deity.
    
     This unwrapping of Christmas invites us to look at our bodies with different eyes and to see them as one with the Body of Christ, both an earthly and cosmic body cherished by God. The Irish theologian Diarmuid O’Murchu says, “God loves bodies.” He also insightfully says “God likes you” (pause to let that last statement soak into your soul) since for we as Christians it is possible to love people whom we don’t like.

     This Christmas Celebration calls us to embrace eroticism which once we rejected as a deadly sinful temptation, but that now with our understanding of the incarnation we should incorporate into our spiritual-inner lives. The anti-sexuality of Christianity of the last several hundred years has led to a repression of sensual creative energies that we now need to abandon as theologically antique and unhealthy.

     So, don’t be afraid to unwrap Christmas--to like yourself and your body—as does God.

     This charming note to Santa must be from some poor blind child who has heard the endearing Christmas carols and the songs of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer and a White Christmas. These songs have aroused a deep longing to actually see Christmas in its glorious splendor; to behold reported homes and stores hung with endless strings of colored lights, the invasion of thousands of dazzlingly illuminated decorated Christmas trees in stores and even inside houses.

     This note to Santa isn’t from a blind person, and yet it also is since each one of us could have written it! While you and I can see all the external lavish decorations of Christmas, are we able to see Christmas? If you and I could, then all that spellbinding awesome wonder of Christmas we felt as small children we can once again experience.

     If we were gifted with a pair of mystical red-framed Christmas eyeglasses we could see the feast of Christmas, the Incarnation of God taking on human flesh in Jesus’ birth, and so much more. We would see God ceasing to be an aloof heavenly dwelling Deity…and now embracing and entering into all that it means to be human, mingling fully in the messiness of human life, and filling all of the world and the cosmos. We would see how out of great love the Divine Mystery has made what we saw once as worldly or secular into the luminously beautiful holy and consecrated. With these Christmas glasses we would see our vocation isn’t to flee or turn our backs on the worldly and secular but rather to behold and respond to the Divine at its depths.

     Wearing these glasses, we can see beyond the dirt and grime of poverty, shame or sickness to behold the face of God. And what if you don’t have such Christmas glasses?
 
Then become addicted, obsessed to performing concrete acts of love, since only a heart in love with humanity and earthy matter can see a God-filled Christmas world.

Dear old and new friends,

     These are the times of belief and disbelief, of skepticism and denial, that we have all lived through before. On the playground in my early grade school days I met my first atheists, or deniers. During the days just before Christmas they challenged my belief in that jolly, red-suited gift giver, while I proclaimed loudly the evidence of his existence in the sightings of him all over the town. I did agree with them that logically the law of gravity made his flying reindeer impossible, but in Santa and his elves my faith remained firm since I had proof of their existence…peanuts!

     As a child, if my two younger brothers and I took our afternoon naps we were told the elves would come and leave for us shelled peanuts in a Santa dish on the ledge of the stairwell, and amazingly they never failed to do so. I don’t know precisely my age when I stopped believing in my once deeply held belief of Santa. But how do we explain a Gallup poll that found one in four high school students, college students and adults believe in Saint Nick? Since a child fears becoming a Santa atheist could logically mean no Christmas gifts, so too the faith convictions of both children and adults have heavy emotional consequences.

     The recent United Nations “Climate Change Conference” in Paris has made front page news. When asked their opinion about it, many claim they can’t make one since they aren’t scientists; while others remain skeptical of the scientific facts. Surprisingly, a Gallup poll recently found that regardless of credible scientific evidence, one in four Americans still disbelieves in climate change! Also, among political conservatives and religious fundamentalists 50 to 60 percent of them deny evolution! (Political candidates wisely do not publicly acknowledge their views.) As in childhood we feared the consequences of a denial of Santa, so then for religious fundamentalists is climate change and evolution “the camel’s nose in the tent” …a prelude to the drastic unraveling of their faith?

      Five-thousand years ago the Athenian orator Demosthenes said, “Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what a man wishes, that he also believes to be true.” Is that the case with today’s climate change deniers, where what they believe is what they wish was true? It certainly was true for Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II (1844-1913). Upon learning of the new electric chair, he ordered one in the hope of deterring crime, though unaware Ethiopia lacked the sufficient electrical power to operate it. So he creatively had the massive chair converted into his throne.

     Emperor Menelick held the unique belief that when he was not well, simply eating some pages of the bible he would make him feel better. His faith in this act may be from the book of Ezekiel where the prophet in a vision saw a hand holding out to him a scripture scroll and heard a voice say, “Eat this.” He did, and found it sweet. In December, 1913, Menelick had a stroke and later felt extremely ill, but instead of calling a doctor he ordered the complete Book of Kings be cut out of the bible and fed page by page to him (in a bible today that would be about 57 pages). He died while chewing the pages…but before he had consumed the entire Book of Kings.

     This December is the 102nd anniversary of Emperor Menelik II’s death, and so an ideal time to examine honestly your beliefs. Not about Santa Claus or his magical elves, but something you both believe and you like to believe, since this true Ethiopian story warns us that our beliefs contrary to evidence have serious consequences.

Dear old and new friends,

     “Eat, drink and be merry” would be a great motto for these December days. December 7th begins Hanukah’s eight-day festival, followed by the celebration of Christmas, and then New Year’s. The coming days call for good food and good wine…speaking of which reminds me of a true story.

     Bishop Johann Fugger set off in the year 1110 from Germany to participate in Emperor Henry V’s coronation in Rome. He sent his majordomo ahead to sample the wines served in taverns along the road leading to Rome, instructing him to write “Est” (It is) over the doors of taverns serving good wine. About a hundred miles north of Rome in the small Italian town of Montefiascone he wrote over the door of the inn, “Est! Est! Est!” Bishop Fugger agreed and drank only the Montefiascone vintage for the rest of his life. He even was buried in that Italian town, and his will directed on the yearly anniversary of his death that a barrel of Montefiascone was poured over his grave! Now there’s a great wine.

     The Teacher of Galilee’s words not to put new wine into old wine skins, as the old skins would break and you would lose both the skins and the new wine, seems like just folk wisdom. Yet the Gospel writer Luke tells us it is a parable! Its lesson seems to warn of not putting new radical ideas into old weary structures, which sadly happened with his teachings when the Church embraced the Gospel. In his life, Galilee’s wandering teacher went about offering the new, very potent wine of love and freedom. Any who dared to drink this new wine quickly developed bizarre behaviors, acting as if the world had been turned upside down. They drunkenly loved their enemies along with everyone else; feeling liberated they ignored those who tried to hold power over them. The inebriated followers also were guilty of WWI: Worshiping While under the Influence by not observing official prayer or temple worship.

     Secular and religious authorities denounced this dangerous new wine, so the teacher wisely instructed his disciples to imitate him and be bootleggers, and like him to carry hidden this new wine in skins in his high boots. They were to offer it only to those tired of the drabness of being sober and wanted to get merrily drunk. If you desire to drink this wondrous new wine, don’t look to the Church to provide it; her wine cellar holds only the old vintage, some so old it has turned to sour vinegar. So you must become a bootlegger and create your “new” wine in your own bathtub winery.
 
     Such new, tasty intoxicating spirits are especially needed since the over-civilized mechanization of life has caused us to lose our human capacity to both deeply love and to be alluringly lovely. Here’s a “new” wine recipe: Absorb as much as possible of the vital life energy of love by loving those in the center of your life more deeply and more passionately each day than you did the day before. But be cautious…don’t love only with your head (cerebral=non-alcoholic wine) but passionately with all your body, and extend your love boundaries by physically embracing more, including unlovable persons.
 
     Finally, be a bootlegger. As the Teacher taught, keep your forbidden booze hidden until you offer some to some sober sad soul who asks how you can be so cheerful and happy in such terrible times? By making your own Galilean new wine and sharing it with the truly thirsty, you’ll find these holidays days to be “Est! Est! Est!” merry.

Dear old and new friends, 

     Once upon a time Thanksgiving was to celebrate the end of a good harvest and that barns and fruit cellars were full, insuring there would be enough to eat through the coming winter. Today’s Thanksgiving signals not the end but the beginning of the harvest season for merchants whose customers will spend roughly 70% of the American gross domestic product on Christmas gifts. These gift sales are critical since they determine merchants’ annual profit and that of our national economy. The nation’s treasury and merchants pray that, in spite of terrorist threat, the old adage “Shoppers keep shopping” will be true this year.

     Yet we and our children already have all if not more than we need; so why buy more? And why does the celebration of Christmas or Hanukkah require giving gifts of things we don’t really need? Wait…did you hear it? That tiny voice saying, “Now Hays, don’t turn into a Scrooge and ruin our coming merry holidays.” I won’t! Yet I wish to help us explore why we do what we do and to offer some other options. We give gifts now because the ancient Romans found the winter weeks to be dark and dreary, so they celebrated Saturnalia on December 17th in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. During December’s cold, long and dark nights, this feast lifted their spirits by drinking and partying to excess. The Romans also exchanged token gifts and candles, and gifts of fruit and nuts.

     The coming of Christianity didn’t convert the climate of dark cold weather, but in the 4th century Christians converted the sinful pagan feast of Saturnalia into the light festival of the birth of Jesus, and kept the old Roman custom of giving gifts. Giving gifts at Christmas time then is a beautiful nearly four thousand year and older tradition well worth keeping. Also, our spirits are lifted with a lights festival in winter’s darkness by illuminating our town and houses with endless strings of festive-colored lights. I have a friend who puts up “inside” his home strings of countless colored Christmas lights. He turns off all other lights and loves to sit meditatively in their glittering grandeur as if at the center of a galaxy. Now there’s a wonderful tradition; turn off the other lights in your home and spend quality time lost in childlike wonder in the magical presence of your lighted Christmas tree.

     For a spouse or family member, instead going to a store for a gift, go around your home and find an old souvenir from some memorable vacation with them. Wrap it in Christmas paper and put it under the tree, and when the person opens it reminisce with them about the good times of that trip. Or recycle a cherished gift by symbolically wrapping it in holiday paper and giving it back (temporally) to the person(s) who had thoughtfully given it to you, telling them how all these years it has been such a keepsake. God help the merchants this year to survive, and even make a profit…but let us not add to the glut of our too-much-of-everything consumerism.

     Finally, while shopping is like a sedative and consumerism the opiate of the masses, we often buy gifts we can’t afford for people who have too much already. It is estimated that one-third of our holiday buying still remains unpaid for two months after Christmas! We also buy stuff people don’t need or even like, as it is estimated 18% of holiday presents (worth a staggering $12 billion) are never worn or used.

     John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the multimillionaire (in today’s dollars a multi-billionaire), learned he was to be gifted in the early 1900’s by his children with an electric car to enable him to easily ride around his vast estate. His response? “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have money."