Merry Christmas ?

I wish I could shoot back a chipper "Merry Christmas to you, too!" in response to 'well-wishers' who want you to know they haven't lost the 'Reason for the Season.' But I get the clumsy words stuck in my throat; hesitant because what some wish Christ to mean has come SO far from what His message and life was truly about.

It's strange to see how far things have gone wrong, and I can't help but wish Jesus were truly coming back, just as his self-proclaimed followers (in name only) profess, though I believe we'd most likely see THEIR gladness turn to sorrow as they would be shunned from the Gates of Heaven and turned to pillars of salt. They say that history is in the hands of those that survive, and I couldn't agree more. Here's a little slice of Reality to go alongside the Humble Pie ol' J.C.'s devoted are having this Holiday.

Jesus was a rebel, an anarchist, a whistle-blower, and an activist. He was labeled a fruitcake of the times. He was an old-time Hippie. He was considered immoral and his 'lifestyle' in bad taste. He and his doctrine were wholly devalued not because of the beliefs of his lineage were in question, but because of the message of love and acceptance he lived. I said LIVED...not "talked about once a week in services."

He was compassionate and did not render judgement on those different from him, including non-believers. He embraced the disgraced, the disenfranchised, the diverse, the marginalized. He didn't "tolerate," denoting superiority; he loved wholly and fully, accepting the unloved without reservation or qualification. He combatted those who did true wrong; the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the tax gatherers, the rich, the idolaters, the scribes, the merchants, and his followers who judged and condemned. He chastised the haughty, and took the fight to the temple. He rebuked those more concerned with posturing and pretense than with his actual message of love and acceptance.

Yes, we really could stand for J.C. to show back up today. I do not believe myself near as compassionate or long-suffering of evil as he was, but I do recognize the disparity between Christ's message and life, and how his followers live today.

These worshippers in name only, these self-appointed mandaters of all that is good and bad. All of which is based on their own ego, their adherence to man's fear and ignorance. None based on the word, the tone, or the pulse of Jesus' love. He never told anyone to condemn their fellow brothers and sisters. Never said to pass laws in his name and command others what to think, how to speak, what to do. His dictate was to live as he had lived, and to show BY EXAMPLE what love and compassion was.

No talk of hardened hearts or hateful speech or laws that create inequity and division. He would burn modern churches to the ground for what has transpired in his name there.

To be of Jesus means doing right and honorable things no matter how much in the minority, no matter the slings and arrows faced. To fight the Powers That Be despite the odds. To take on those that threaten and bully and enjoy division and keeping others' spirits down. He lived humble and pure, not from absence of fear or impulses, but despite them. He was great in spite of his limitations and worries.

Let's take time at what is ostensibly the season to celebrate Christ's birth, and let's reflect on the real message of the man. Not the bastardized, corrupted version that man has spread like a plague. Allow providence, mercy, and truth of man's interconnected sameness enter your heart and transform you. Every day.

I can't change how other people live; no one can. I can only live the best life I can live, ever aspiring to be as strong as Jesus or Dr. King Jr. or Gandhi or Mother Teresa.Believing that others, despite appearances, may be trying to do the same. I guess I feel okay wishing a Merry Christmas after all.

Lovingly,
Robert Sayre
Georgia Unity
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"Each of them is Jesus in disguise." - Mother Teresa of Calcutta about how she could stay amongst the 'sick' and the 'sinners.'

"The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men,and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible." - Thomas Jefferson

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky.I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong." - John Lennon

"When Jesus Christ asked little children to come to him, he didn't say only rich children, or White children, or children of two-parent families or children who didn't have mental or physical handicaps. He said 'Let all children come unto me.' " - Marian Wright Edelman