Christmas is a day of love and giving and showing appreciation. Giving someone a present means you love them in this culture and society. Or it could be an obligatory thing. Well, it is anyway, but not just that to a lot of people I think. The world is far from perfect. Probably because there are billions of voices and common ground is hard to find. It's too much of a challenge. The world can't be saved, can it? So what was Jesus here to do, anyway? Save us from our sins? Well I don't even know what that means. We still sin, we still have consequences for sinning, we will keep sinning. So. Are we just supposed to strive for goodness all the time? I don't know anyone that does just that. Maybe we just do what is easy, but easy on our conscience, too. Which could be just about anything, really. You could justify anything in the end. Plus there are no clear boundaries. There are the commandments. But there are grey areas for everything. Christmas is probably just what you make of it. People that aren't Christian celebrate Christmas. Other people that aren't Christian can't play any type of Christmas music, secular or not.
Our tree is the ugliest thing you ever did see. It's bulky and thick, someone was creative enough to put not only silver garland but red garland to and fro across it, the strung lights are an odd combination of pinks, greens, yellows and blues. The ornaments range from popsicle stick rudolphs to large paper bells to heavy snowman to pictures of young children, and the crookedly placed star on top alternates from neon blue to neon green every two seconds (it's very distracting).
Not a person is balanced between rationality and emotionality when it comes to thinking, acting, and reacting. They are either too rational and considered a stoic or heartless or they are too emotional and get carried away with anything they think might be mildly offensive. Ava is the only innocent one, so it's a good thing she'll be playing Jesus in the pageant, (although she has no choice). The scarf tied on my head today both liberated me and oppressed me. I was free in choosing how to dress, yet i was called a pirate, a gypsy, a mammy, and my scarf was called a turban (which it did not look like in the least, by the way). I listened to a large discussion/debate on power dynamics and racism today after school between two well-educated people. Immediately following, I had a dumb argument that led to nowhere good because in a remark realizing my headscarf oppression, my headscarf was called a turban and I was blunt and annoyed because the person who said it said it without thinking first and because I reacted thus I felt obligated to explain that I was only blunt because I had just gotten out of a large discussion/debate and couldn't handle non-thought-out and plainly wrong remarks. Because the person was highly emotional and not at all rational, things escalated to the point where I couldn't explain myself without everything I said being interrupted and\or ridiculously twisted back at me. And so this just makes me mad. And then I read my sister's paper on how Muslim women in secularized Turkey feel liberated or oppressed by their headscarves. So the moral of the story is that everything is real and nothing makes real sense.
Ah, Christmas. Such a lovely time of the year, isn't it? A time for giving. Because no other time is a time for giving. Sorry. Just ignore the sarcasm. Think think think. Pachew pachew. Is life really just what you make of it? I need some fresh perspective, always. Nicely done, well-seasoned perspective. Ratatouille reference. We are not what you think we are. We are golden.
