CHRISTMAS THANKSGIVING

In beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.

I did not post for Thanksgiving, but that special holiday is ever on my mind because I love Thanksgiving. It is a uniquely American holiday.

It celebrates the underlying optimism of our nation which believes at its core, and expresses in its founding documents that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity are human rights, not just for ourselves, but for all humanity.

You can’t be more Christian without mentioning Christ than that. 

And for that, I am truly thankful.

We Christians are expected to be thankful every day. Thanksgiving is built into the system of our faith.

We love our God of love for whom we are thankful. We love our messiah who revealed a kingdom of God that is possible when Christians love one another and others.

Now, it is Christmas time. It is that time when we express our gratitude for the birth of our brother, our father of our faith, and our savior of the world who showed what our God of love looks like in a human life.

We are thankful that we are condemned by people, but we are not condemned by God. All we must do is love God and love others.

In that, there is no condemnation.

I am truly thankful. To be honest, folks, I struggled with my faith.  

I struggled for a long time because of the load of condemnation that came with the ancient baggage that the substance of our faith came neatly folded within.  

I struggled for a long time with superstitions that conflicted with what I knew to be true and yet were presented as gospel.

I yet struggle with what faith means.

But I never struggled with this love for our God of love whom I have known—as if our God of love was loving God within me.

I am ever thankful that Christmas happens. I am thankful that there are such days as holidays, which are truly holy days.

I am thankful for no other reason than these are the days set aside so that all I have to do is be with people I love and who love me.

It will not ever be so: to know such good days as these are now. I have known lonelier days, desperate days during this time of year.

This past year has been a desperate year for billions of other human beings, including myself. 

But not now.  Not today.  For the sake of the joy I feel at this time, I will revel in the holiness of it.

I know nothing wonderful lasts forever, but it is marvelous that something wonderful happens still. 

Blessings…