Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Beyond The Mirror – A Bill Allin Column

Dec 22, 2006

I have decided to enter this weeks’s column into the Christmas contest as well.

Christmas: Most of It Doesn’t Matter
By Bill Allin

"May the peace of Jesus Christ be always with you!" (email signature line of Tannia Ortiz-Lopes ) Tannia’s signature inspired this article.

What is a Christian? Or a Muslim? Or a Jew? Or a Hindu, Taoist or Bahai?

Is a Christian someone who decorates his house with coloured lights before Christmas, piles loads of presents under a real or fake evergreen, goes to church on Christmas Eve or Day and has the family and maybe friends over for a huge turkey feast?

Is a good Muslim someone who attends mosque regularly, prays five times daily, observes the restrictions of Ramadan and makes at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in his lifetime?

Or is a Muslim someone who blows up his neighbours and himself in the cause of "freedom", who uses a child as a shield when shooting at "the enemy" and who learns hatred at the knee of an imam master?

Is a good Christian, then, someone who invades a country that is predominantly of a different religion, deposing its leader so that two opposing factions of that other religion will generate a religious war between them for dominance in the Middle East? Also done in the name of "freedom."

Or is a Christian someone who encourages government practices that force people to live on the street because they can’t live with respect elsewhere, as they believe that everyone should learn to earn for themselves? "Get a job!"

Is a good Jew someone who can debate issues freely from the Torah, a Christian one who can quote scriptures from the Old Testament, a Muslim one who can quote easily from the Quran?

If this has confused you about where I am going with this, imagine how many people are confused about their own religion and the religions of others when they are faced with so many conflicting reports from so many parts of the world. We are often so concerned with what religion is that we often pay little attention to what religion was designed to teach us, to do for us.

More particularly we lose track of how similar the objectives of the founders of the world’s many religions were. And why they exist at all.

Christmas is the chosen date for the celebration of the birth of the god-man who gave his name to Christianity, but also who was one of the more notable prophets of Judaism and of Islam. (Both Jesus and Mother Mary are mentioned respectfully in Islam’s Quran. The first five books of the Christian Bible are part of the Jewish Torah.)

Jesus didn’t tell anyone how they should spend their working life or instruct anyone to give away everything they own and become a homeless preacher as he was. (His problem with rich men was their ethics, not their wealth.) He didn’t quote biblical Old Testament prophets about ascetic living or about fighting enemies.

Jesus told people to love one another, to help one another, to assist each other to grow and fulfill the potential they have within them. He taught them to find God within themselves. He taught that each person is fundamentally good, with the potential to do good for others.

Jesus was a Jew who never pretended or aspired to be anything but a Jew, but he spoke to everyone of any persuasion who wanted to listen. He was a man of peace whose only known non-peaceful action was to upset the tables of the merchants, outside the temple in Jerusalem, where most of the activity involved selling trinkets and animal sacrifices to people who believed they could buy their way into the good graces of God.

No one can buy that. It’s not for sale. The grace of God can only be shared freely by those who have found theirs.

Christmas Day is the Christian celebration that fell on the same day as the Roman Saturnalia celebration. Let’s remember that much of the activity surrounding Christmas today is no different from what the ancient Romans did.

If we want Christmas to really mean something significant, we should follow the teachings of Jesus, the words of the god-man himself, not those of the Saturnalia-motivated self-important Christians.

The teachings of Jesus may be followed without shame or embarrassment equally well by Christians, Muslims and Jews. He taught nothing that would conflict with any of those religions. In fact, most Muslims do not dispute the Christian claim that Jesus was the Son of God.

Moreover, the more you learn about Hinduism, Taoism, Bahai or any other religion, the more you will see how much their teachings overlap with those of Jesus. So-called pagan or heathen religions (terms invented by Christians to describe non-Christians) also share the same primary values.

We are all in this together. God knew that. Jesus taught that. We need to learn that. Most of the trappings of Christmas are clearly not components of what Jesus taught and what he believed.

Christmas matters only if we follow the words of the man who gave his name to it. The Saturnalia part of Christmas is just partying like the "pagans" did. You can’t buy the real importance of Christmas with a credit card. But even the poorest person can share with others what Jesus stood for, what the god-man was all about, what he taught.

Take a moment to consider what Christmas really means. Never mind what the television commercials and the bright lights tell you. Dig deeper within yourself to find it.