What Christmas means to me - and something about Star Wars

No seriously, I am going to write about this even though it seems corny. I feel like I have a good point of view as a long-time dedicated Christian who not only sees the value of the religious side of the holiday, but the secular as well. A special thanks to the Christian Conservatives that brought me the anger to tackle this subject.

First, let me say that this is very much a rant and likely has no sense of organization. Second, a little background. I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church, which has been known as conservative. I would argue that most Episcopal churches are made up of rich white people who have generally conservative social views. I have been to other churches of various denominations and others that were completely non-denominational. In the end, I feel most comfortable in the Episcopal Church because it brings a good balance of scripture, traditional liturgy, and even some ability to think freely. Having said that, I attend All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena which is widely known as a very liberal church that condones, supports, and conducts same-sex marriages, is very socially active and liberal, and pushes for social and economic justice. There's still mostly rich white people though.

Next, my feelings about Christmas. I like presents. I like getting presents. I love giving them even more. I've got some really good ones so far this year. My lovely future wife adopted a meerkat for me. Meerkats are my favorite animal and there is a place just outside of Palm Springs that houses injured and old meerkats and takes some of the overcrowding from zoos. So this year I will visit this place, play with the meerkats, and get a framed picture of the meerkat that was adopted for me. Back to the point. Presents are fun for me because its like a time for people to get something new. The new year is coming and you start it with a new DVD, new iPod, new books, new toys, whatever. Religiously, the new for me is a new hope. A chance for us to look back at the year that has passed and decide what we can do "new" the next year to make ourselves and our world better. Sure, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, but to me that is more a celebration of this same new hope. I think Jesus and Luke Skywalker are sort of parallel characters in that way. The first Star Wars (Episode IV - New Hope) showed a young man coming of age and learning of the role that he would play in the universe. Early in his life, Luke was only concerned with cleaning droids and buying power converters. Later he had a huge effect on just about everyone on the universe. However, we see at the end of Episode III that there was great hope for the two children born to Amidala and Anakin and that they were protected to make sure they would reach their later lives. The birth of Jesus was not a big deal in the sense that there was now a kid named Jesus, but in the sense that he would eventually die for people's sins after blowing up the Death Star (or something like that). Really, I celebrate Christmas not only as a time to spend with family and friends, eating and drinking, exchanging gifts, etc., but as a celebration of that gift so many years ago that showed us that there is always new hope and that change can come if you do something about it and that you can defeat the Empire if you hone your Jedi skills well enough. (by Empire I mean Bush and by Jedi skills I mean, well, I guess I really do mean Jedi skills).

Now, the part that I am mad about is the arguing that we all get into at Christmas time. To me, this whole "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" and "Happy Birthday Jesus" is a bunch of crap started by people who can't get over themselves. First of all, Jesus was not born on December 25th. Christians decided to celebrate Jesus' birth on that day in order to compete with the pagan holidays that had become more popular. Plus, in my view, if you actually focus so much on the birth and not the end result of the birth then you are forgetting what the whole deal is about. Have you read the mass e-mail that goes out every year about not including Jesus at your Christmas Party? I have. Look, it has good intentions, but only really wants to make you feel guilty. Do you invite the dead guy to his own funeral? No, but you eat and drink and celebrate in his honor. Although many Christians think that Christmas has become too secular, this Christian feels like Jesus would like the fact that the day we made up to celebrate his birth is a time where people are nice to each other more, give more to charities, and help to take care of the less fortunate that we ignore all year.

I would argue, however, that there is too much commercialism, but that is the nature of the beast I guess. Don't you think its funny though that the same Christian Conservatives that are now trying to force people to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" are the same people that need businesses to do well at Christmas so their stocks will go up? They want us to remember that "without Christ there is no Christmas." but have no problem justifying killing people all over the world with our military. I guess it comes down to people only believing what is convenient to believe. Maybe its too much for people to think "God probably has no problem with two people of the same sex being in a committed loving relationship" because gay people just gross them out too much. Just a thought.

Finally, back to Christmas. I feel like this past year has been one of my better years. No major life crisis. Got engaged, paid off some debts, read some good books, saw some good movies, made some new friends, Liverpool won Champions League and Galaxy won the MLS Cup, etc. What am I going to change? More vegetables and no french fries. More light and low-carb beer or just gin n' tonics. I'm actually using my gym membership. Smaller portions. I want to say more nice things to people. I want to keep my apartment more clean and get rid of the things that I don't need. Less TV and more conversations. Finally, I want to do more to counter-balance the bad people in the world. And by bad people I mean Republicans.

Just kidding.

No I'm not.