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In Whatever Fashion
December 25, 2008
I am Ebenezer Scrooge. It's a name I'd only associated with the countless versions of the classic tale that I've watched in one medium or another since I was a kid but it's not a name I would have affiliated with my character. Ebenezer . . . how coarsely it rolls off the tongue as if an urgent need to spew the sound from the mouth like molded bread. I see now what Ebenezer saw and the optical distortion that has become Christmas. Unlike Ebenezer who eventually found the true meaning of a sacred Christian holiday I have lost most of the ability to see the real meaning even though I know it in my heart. I find myself falling into all the modes and patterns that Christmas is not. Commercial advertising inundates my senses flaunting electronic babbles and material possessions that all claim I must have to be happy.
I have witnessed the monthly turn around to our "holidays" in the media and in our stores. It's a yearly cycle of what we need to buy or should buy based upon the turn of a calendar page. We have Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. We have Valentines Day, Easter and Memorial Day. We have Labor Day, President's Day and other days that bring us visions of satisfying the holiday with cash instead of expression. How can Ebenezer and I cope with such a media blitz? How can Ebenezer show you, show you truly what a holiday's meaning really is not what someone would have you believe.
What's happened to all of us? How can so many days set aside for an observation of something that is good or just become media and commercial events funded by a public frenzy to follow the norm. In many ways it makes an intelligent species look less than a lemming. Yet, bashing the meanings of these holidays in your eyes will not promote nor change anything so another avenue, another option toward enlightenment will be written for your consideration.
In the Christian belief December 25 is the day agreed upon as the birth of Jesus Christ. For Buddhist's, Islamic, Jews, Hindus amongst others December 25 is just another day. As such December 25 is a day of religious observation correct? I must need glasses as the fervor I see during the month before this day has very little to do with the birth of Christ. Not needing to itemize the many things wrong with Christmas in this sense I will leave it to your thinking to discern what is right and what is wrong with this message. We have a man, an old man that thousands emulate in stores across this country. He is dressed in a red suit with white trim and other than his eyes his face is hardly recognizable due to their facial hair, real or not. He sits kids on his knee as photos are taken and wishes are made for what that child wants under the tree. In any other moment an older man sitting for such tales and requests from those so young might be looked upon differently in societies eyes, aye?
In many cultures there are days of reverence that of this current time few such practices actually practice what they preach. The remainder of world culture falls prey to the motivation of material issues. I too am among the guilty. But this is a new Ebenezer now friend and I will no longer fall prey to the need to degrade myself by doing what is just and feeling good about humankind on simply one day a year as with my namesake I will celebrate on each day of the year. I will not look back to what was perhaps if only from time to time guidance in wisdom and certainly cannot portend when and where my path may change. It seems practical to focus my life in every moment. Isn't that both a present and the present?
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For too long I've messed with the wiring in my head. Now it shorts out more oft than not. But at my age I just sit and enjoy the sparks. RJM '07
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