CHRISTMAS LETTER

Advent Christmas Letter

Love’s will on earth may be through you.

-Angel to Mary

The infinite becomes finite

-W.H. Auden, oh, and the gospels too.

Use the word Love when you say God.

Guess what? The world will end when the kingdom comes at the end of history.

God, not the present incumbent, will handle it.

How to pray? Give thanks for every person in your address book and then add a few more.

Pray for 1/30th of the list every day for a month, then start over. It’s OK to pray for our immediate family every day and then the rest. Remember, prayer works on us, not on God. God “does not give a hoot” for our measly prayers. A prayer of thanks for our family and friends will work on us. We will become truly human.

It is ok to ask God for help, help, help. You may get it, you may not get it, or you will have to help yourself. But you will feel great just asking for help

More than you want to know about our modest travels. A week in Palm Springs, five weeks in London in June, two weeks in Utah in August, in October Robert in New England visiting family while Ann was on a three week safari in Tanzania with her brothers and sister. Any questions?

Health? Robert creaky, Ann robust.

Love and bask in the Christmas story. We humans are loved so much that our creator came and lived with us.

A Blessed Christmas,

Robert and Ann

CHRISTMAS

 Christmas 

Christmas is not the birthday of Santa Claus. Christmas is not about Christ. On December 25^th, Christians for centuries have celebrated the birth of Jesus, the son of a Jewish family, born in Bethlehem in Judea. The exact date or place of his birth are not known for certain. He grew up to be a preacher and teacher. His life and work are steeped in tradition and story. He was thought by early Christians to be especially anointed by God and therefore called Christ, the anointed one. Some even called him Messiah.

His basic teaching is to heal the sick and care for the hungry, widows and orphans, and to oppose the injustice of the religious and the Roman leaders of his time. He was executed by the government forces while in his early thirties.

The early followers of Jesus were Jews. Some of them began to call Jesus Messiah. Most Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah and were critical of the so-called Christians.  As the Christian Church became stronger, it initiated sharp criticism against Jews because they refused to believe Jesus was Messiah.

Many Christians began to think of Jesus as God in human flesh. This was made official in the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. It proclaimed that Jesus was truly God and truly man. Christians have wrestled with that idea for centuries.

The Christian Churches grew to great power. The Roman Church, the Orthodox Churches, the Anglicans and the Protestants all abandoned the basic teachings of Jesus. They were all more interested in power than compassion.

As a result, terrible things have happened in the name of Jesus Christ. Pogroms, racism, crusades, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals, crimes against people who believe in abortion and birth control. There are even attacks on people who want to feed the hungry and heal the sick, the basic caring ideas of Jesus.

Christmas Day is a festal commemoration of Jesus’ birth. It demands that we look carefully at Jesus’ basic teaching by loving our neighbors and giving gifts of compassion for our human family.