I received "Twas the Month before Christmas" from a friend of mine I've known for several years. Usually, her e-mails are nice, angelic, pictures of God's creation in soft focus, or cute kittens and puppies in hilarious situations but this one was different.
This was my first shot in the dreaded War on Christmas. Sunnova bitch! "Well, there it is. War. We didn't want it but now we've got it" I've always prayed that Veteran's Day would be celebrated with ever increasingly older veterans as the years go by but, Dammit! I'm gonna have to fire up the old Reply-To-All button.
So I did. May God have mercy on my soul!
First, the letter:
Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS,
not Happy Holiday!
...
Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet during the
holidays a
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!
Sigh... Okay, "Carol" (not her real Christian name) is a very sweet yet sheltered woman whom I've known since she and her daughter joined our "Virtuous Reality Blacklight Theater" group when they started attending my church. They came from Russell Johnson's Fairfield Christian Church (not the Professor from "Gilligan's Island" but of the Sidekick to Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Council on Moral Clarity infamy) which we liked to call Fort God. Actually, we still do even though Johnson has left... under strangly vague circustances, but I digress.
I needed to reply because FOXtians and Fort God'ers are ruining it for the rest of us and allowing Weeds of Ignorance to invade the Lawn of Truth will ruin our Freedom... Bar-bee-ques...
And again, I digress...
So here's the Reply-TO-All:
Oh dear... this again...
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
Who are these PC Police people who have the power to remove Christ from Christmas? And why can't anyone say? Is it a secret? Or is it because the only one who can remove the Christ from Christmas is oneself? Christ can't because he died on that cross for EVERYONE, even the people who actively oppose His teachings.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
I come from a Jewish background and, yes, I can relate to folks whose "feelings" are hurt when they must declare the divinity of Christ in a school song. I can understand why a Protestant would find it hurtful to be denied communion during the celebration of the Holy Father in Rome. I can relate to being thought of as unsaved in a room full of worshipers awash in the Holy Spirit because I'm not even lifting a single hand in the air.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
This has nothing to do with the Christian faith and has everything to do with Capitalism.
Christmas isn't about crushing people underfoot to get an I-pod. Christmas is about God's gift to us in the form of Jesus. Yes, we often exchange gifts on birthdays but Capitalism has taken this simple exchange, this act of love and fellowship, and turned it into a monster: the Government has passed no law that says you must shop for Christmas (or "the Holidays" for that matter), the Government has never passed a law that says you must pay tribute to a god by shopping, the Government has not passed a law that commands retailers to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"; in fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution explicitly spells out that Congress can't do this. Retailers, however, are in the business to make money and will use any pretext to do it. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself but don't kid yourself into thinking that what Christians honor has anything to do with what Capitalism honors.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Exclusive, insensitive, and uniformity are words that can intimidate the minority too. In fact, a big reason why the Christian faith has been losing ground in recent decades is not the works of the non religious but the works of those who want people to believe the way THEY want to believe; the True, Right and Correct Way To Believe, yet god saw fit to populate the world with Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans, Quakers, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Apostolics, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Mormons, Methodists, Mennonites, and countless Baptists just to name a few...Christian sects.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
I don't know who Darden is nor do I know why these people are listed other than their perceived Democratic Party label which suggests that it is these people who may be part of that PC Police thing earlier however, Tom Daschle, Al Sharpton, Wolf Blitzer, and Dan Rather are not or are no longer in the Senate, so I'm left to conclude that this poem has been around for a decade or so and yet:
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
As if these people were passing laws - something the constitution expressly forbids them to do - eliminating Jesus in all public matter. Again, get on the web and Google Congress and find me any legislation that forbids the citizenry from worship. You can't find anything because such legislation isn't happening.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
Irregardless of the fact that there is nothing the Government can do to take your faith away, why would you speak not a word? And if one is forbidden to speak of Salvation and Grace than one must be saying that it is okay to make school children worship the way the majority worships thru the use of pageants and chain store greetings, thus: if most folks were of a mindset to put on a religious pageant and there were a minority of folks who didn't believe, than the minority should just sit on their hands and allow their faith to take a back seat to the will of the majority, right? I mean, everyone knows that when Mohammed ascended into heaven, it was a wondrous time with the shepherds declaring Allah's greatness and the Mosque bells ringing out their joyous sound, so why couldn't we have all the kids stand up and sing about this story from the Holy Koran?
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
Finally! A line I can agree with! Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, yet the true Christian holy day of the year is Easter; every prophet and every messiah figure had been born and has died but only Jesus died and was raised.
The government has nothing to do with matters of faith. Only one's heart has any influence on belief. If your heart needs Government to make you believe than go ahead and work to get people who believe the way you do elected. After all, it's a free country. But if your heart has learned that Love begins changing the world by awakening one heart at a time than no amount of intimidation can stop you from sharing with someone the gift of Jesus Christ. Likewise, however, no amount of shouting "Merry Christmas" at fine retailers everywhere will make people think that December 25th is more than the day we celebrate the birth of Santa.
...
She read this at Practice (Virtuous Reality does a wicked cool Blacklight Christmas show using sacred and secular as well as parody songs to entertain and delight people from ages 8 to 80 - once we had to cut "There's Another Santa Claus" from the show because one of the lines goes "...his Christmas cheer smells a lot like beer, hope Santa calls a cab tonight" and that was assuredly going to offend the sensiblities of the Blue Hairs at a church where we performed - heh... again with the digressing...)
and she said, "Boy! You sure put a lot of thought into this." I demured and realized that she hadn't anticipated someone replying. I told her I love getting her E-mails but I can't let falsehoods go by without fighting back with the Truth. She thanked me and I knew that the Good Guys had won this little skrimmage in the War.