I rose from my sleep in full possession of my faculties, enjoyed time with my immediate and extended family and still had like five bucks in the account this evening, despite my kids and Madison Avenue's combined efforts. (More like $3.75 but hey, who's counting.)
I'm blessed by the best. This I know for certain.
But....
Something has been bothering me for a while now and I'm wondering if I'm the only person who's feeling or has ever felt this way.
It's a touchy situation though...because it's about Christmas.
Well, my quandary begins with Christmas but ends in a much more vast/general question.
Let's start with the Christmas issue. The thing is, the celebration of Christmas as we know it on the 25th of December, is pagan in origin. Around the time of the creation of the Julian calendar, winter solstice fell around the 25th of December and was celebrated by many pagan religions in Europe. The Church had been looking for a time to celebrate the birth of Christ and superimposed the Christmas celebration onto the pagan winter solstice celebration. They'd figured that it was easy since people had already been celebrating on this day so it wouldn't be that hard to convince them that this was a Holy day and it was also a means of 'civilizing' the various pagan worshippers.
I've reconciled the fact that the modern celebration of Christmas is based on a lie but the birth of our Savior is 100% true. So I never lose the reason for the season.
We should be celebrating His works on a daily basis anyway.
BUT....
...Christmas on the 25th IS a lie, nonetheless. Invented and perpetuated by the Church.
So my questions are:
1.)Am I the only one who has ever struggled with this?
2.) Is a lie, even if it's "for a good reason," ever an acceptable course of action? Doesn't have to be as deep a conundrum as the one I worked through with Christmas, but in a general sense, is it ever really okay to "stretch the truth" or embellish a bit as long as you have good intentions? (Point of clarification: The road to Hell is NOT paved with good intentions; rather it is paved with the same crap they use to pave and re-pave various Philadelphia streets and/or expressways at least 23 times in a two year period and ALWAYS during rush hour when I'm running late for work at the furthest duty station possible from my home.)
Above: Dante's 7th level. I'm.Not.Kidding.
If you're up from your "itis" induced, Christmas meal nap, I welcome you to share your thoughts on this.
Gracias.
R.I.P. Eartha Kitt (1927-2008)
2 comments:
hello phello philadelphian... greetings by way of VSB (I almost typed VBS-- Vacation Bible School, HA!)
I love that you called the Schuylkill the 7th Level... because it is.
I too struggled with the fact that Christmas isn't actually Christ's Mass... momentarily. At the end of the day my questions was... what will God say about it when we get there? I can only hazard a guess but since he created man, and we are made in His image, it means he also has senses of practicallity and humor. I personally cannot wait to hear it.
@BBmo
That's how I had to look at it too. I spent a lot of time a number of years ago being upset about the whole "Winter Solstice" thing and concluded that as long as I kept my mind on why we were celebrating, it was all to the good. The fault lay with man; not the Creator. It just got me to thinking that justifying lies for "just cause" is a slippery slope...
And yeah; the "Sure Kill" is the worst road ever. Second only to the Boulevard...
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