I am one of those people who will say Happy Holidays and I can tell you emphatically, that I am not trying to take the Christ out of Christmas. I have many friends and family that are devout Christians and I respect their celebration of their savior this time of year and will warmly greet them with Merry Christmas as an acknowledgement of their faith and my respect for it.

Where I use Happy Holidays is in an environment where I know there are people of other faiths or if I am not sure of their faith, I will greet folks this time of year with a Happy Holidays.  You see Christianity isn’t the only faith in the world and there are other people of other faiths that have different traditions. Heck even people who are traditionally lumped in together with Christians with the term Judeo-Christians, Jews, don’t celebrate Christmas. And that doesn’t even address the Muslims, Buddhists and Hindu’s of the world. As a real world, everyday example in my department at work, all four of the religions mentioned above are represented on our team. To treat them all as if they are all celebrating Christmas just doesn’t wash for me.

I have no issue with people or businesses that wish to acknowledge that there are other religions besides Christianity celebrating this time of year by the use of Happy Holidays. You do know that Hanukkah for example is celebrated in December right? Not to mention the secular New Years celebration.

So Christians, I am not trying to take the Christ out of your Christmas. Keep him there, but get past the idea that you are the only faith recognized and respect the people who have a different path to connect with their spirituality. Someone who thinks differently than you should not be a threat, they should be embraced.

My Two Cents

Yes

How do I know

Cuz

I like who I am when I am around you

You encourage, support and inspire me to grow

You get me like no one else

I don’t have to think about loving you, I just do

Thank You

‘But this is very much like the rest of life, where, as Kierkegaard so shrewdly observes, one is condemned to live it forward and review it backward. If you are going to sleep with Thatcher’s future ministers and toy with a future president’s lesbian girlfriend, in other words, you will not be able to savor it fully at the time and will have to content yourself with recollecting it in some kind of tranquility.’

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you an I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”

Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow

PSNS at Dusk

Full Moon over Bremerton Harbor

Always Take a Second and Appreciate Your World

Bill Makes Irena An Honest Woman

“Inside the cathedral you have to pass the great Altar of Perdon, all golden with angels flying about. The black Christ of the Venom hangs there dead in his black skirt, surrounded by little balconies, maybe for the angels to land on when they get tired. It was such a monument of accusation, even Mother had to bow her head a little as she crept past it, sins dripping from her shoes as we walked around the nave, leaving invisible puddles on the clean tiles.”

The book follows the extraordinary life of William Shepherd, who spent time as a cook and personal assistant to Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky before becoming a best-selling author. Shepherd is a great character with extreme highs and lows in his life. He has the kind of outlook on life that made me wish he was a real friend of mine.

Beyond her incredible ability to paint a picture with words (much like one of my other favorite authors, Clive Barker), Kingsolver doesn’t shy away from social issues, tackling head on the type of Fox News fear mongering so prevalent today wrapped up in the context of the fear of communism in the McCarthy era. I don’t want to give the ending away, but she clearly doesn’t adhere to Hollywood endings.

I have already added my next Kingsolver sampling to my list of books to read and I fully expect that when all is said and done I will have read everything she chooses to write.

Peace Out

Bill