Amen!
Saw this in Liz Smith's NY Post column today, and it was just too good not to share....
'AS WE approach Christmas and — yes, also the new year of 2006 — I am thinking about the ongoing quarrels over "putting Christ back into Christmas" and whether or not the expression "Happy Holidays" is just a secular stupidity? And should every public display include along with the Nativity, Hanukkah candles, a Kwanzaa cloth, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim mosque? Do we have the right to insist on certain names for certain symbols meaningful to us while denying others the right to be merely indifferent, or even blasphemous?
I do think it's all a matter of choice and tradition. Just as I know that any God I can believe in has to be the one who is mighty enough and secure enough to have given man the right to decide for himself. The choice is to believe in God — or not, as one sees fit.
I like to say "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" because I was raised in a Christian Southern tradition that believed deeply in the sentiments implied. But feel free not to say it back to me. It's your choice. I wouldn't think of not keeping to the traditions of Hanukkah even though they are not the traditions I was raised in. And I would never ask my Jewish friends to call Hanukkah by some other name just because it pertains to a religion not my own. I respect the customs of all religions, even ones I don't believe in or even some that seem to me to be subverting freedom of choice and tolerance. I would never enter some religious place wearing shoes or without covering my head if the custom was to do otherwise.
Of all of America's Christmases, it seems to me this is the one where we need to make an effort to respect one another, to observe each other's differing customs with calm acceptance and to stop all this fighting over nothing.
You can enjoy the pagan side of these holidays without being a Christian or subscribing to religion. Just as I go to Hanukkah celebrations and seders and enjoy them without being Jewish.
Go ahead and say Merry Christmas, or not. But say something from your heart.'
Merry Christmas!
'AS WE approach Christmas and — yes, also the new year of 2006 — I am thinking about the ongoing quarrels over "putting Christ back into Christmas" and whether or not the expression "Happy Holidays" is just a secular stupidity? And should every public display include along with the Nativity, Hanukkah candles, a Kwanzaa cloth, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim mosque? Do we have the right to insist on certain names for certain symbols meaningful to us while denying others the right to be merely indifferent, or even blasphemous?
I do think it's all a matter of choice and tradition. Just as I know that any God I can believe in has to be the one who is mighty enough and secure enough to have given man the right to decide for himself. The choice is to believe in God — or not, as one sees fit.
I like to say "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" because I was raised in a Christian Southern tradition that believed deeply in the sentiments implied. But feel free not to say it back to me. It's your choice. I wouldn't think of not keeping to the traditions of Hanukkah even though they are not the traditions I was raised in. And I would never ask my Jewish friends to call Hanukkah by some other name just because it pertains to a religion not my own. I respect the customs of all religions, even ones I don't believe in or even some that seem to me to be subverting freedom of choice and tolerance. I would never enter some religious place wearing shoes or without covering my head if the custom was to do otherwise.
Of all of America's Christmases, it seems to me this is the one where we need to make an effort to respect one another, to observe each other's differing customs with calm acceptance and to stop all this fighting over nothing.
You can enjoy the pagan side of these holidays without being a Christian or subscribing to religion. Just as I go to Hanukkah celebrations and seders and enjoy them without being Jewish.
Go ahead and say Merry Christmas, or not. But say something from your heart.'
Merry Christmas!
posted by Texas Blondie @ 4:58 PM
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