As the tradition I started myself dictates, I present to you C. S. Lewis’s playfully satirical essay called “Xmas and Christmas”. May we never forget the reason for the season.
God is not angry with you.
Beautiful rendition of Psalm 139 as read by Tribe of Los Angeles. Compiled and edited by David Eppley.
Adam Branch, senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda:
As someone who has worked in northern Uganda and researched the war there for more than a decade, much of it with a local human rights organisation based in Gulu, the Invisible Children organisation and their videos have often left me infuriated. I remember the sleepless nights after I watched their “Rough Cut” film for the first time with a group of students, after which I tried to explain to the audience what was wrong with the film while on stage with one of the filmmakers.
My frustration with the group has largely reflected the concerns expressed so convincingly by those online critics who have been willing to bring the fury of Invisible Children’s true believers down upon themselves in order to point out what is wrong with this group’s approach: the warmongering, the narcissism, the commercialisation, the reductive and one-sided story they tell, their portrayal of Africans as helpless children in need of rescue by white Americans.
Branch proposes a different approach: education. What is the actual problem? Are we already part of it?
Things are always more complicated than we wish they were.
Great video by Jesse Rosten:
This commercial isn’t real, neither are society’s standards of beauty.
Any article which finds a decent reuse for a C. S. Lewis book title deserves at least a cursory review. David Brooks actually does a pretty good job with it:
Murray’s story contradicts the ideologies of both parties. Republicans claim that America is threatened by a decadent cultural elite that corrupts regular Americans, who love God, country and traditional values. That story is false. The cultural elites live more conservative, traditionalist lives than the cultural masses.
Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.
We’re all in this together.
Donald Miller:
Jack was born to be a dentist. Both his mother and father were dentists and from an early age they took Jack with them once a week to their local dental school. Even as a child Jack loved dental school because of the children’s program where kids gathered in colorful rooms and listened to well-mannered teachers read ancient stories about famous dentists, pioneer dentists who created endodontic and prosthodontic procedures. Jack sat wide eyed and mouth agape, as close as he could to his teacher as she turned page after glorious page of cartooned characters knuckle deep in the mouths of sun-drenched and bushy-bearded patients.
You too can quit church to do more ministry.
It is a longstanding Christmas tradition of mine to share C. S. Lewis’s playfully satirical essay called “Xmas and Christmas”. (Hint: it’s not about word choice.) I can’t think of a more appropriate tradition to be sharing with you this year than a reminder of the “reason for the season”. Go ahead and read it. I will be here when you get back.
I had the opportunity to share your generous donations for the “Christmas Grace Bomb” with a family of five yesterday on Christmas Eve. Let me tell you, I was a little jealous. They have such cheerful, beautiful kids. Their stockings were hung. Movies were playing on the TV. And the sheer magnitude of stick-togetherness was palpable. It made me miss my own family immensely.
You see, this is the first year I have ever not been with family on Christmas, and I’ve been trying to make up for it by infiltrating other families. I had great success yesterday which was entirely thanks to friends like you who came together to make Christmas a little bit brighter for a family in sunny Southern California.
So please don’t get caught up in the Rush of that crazy holiday the Niatirbians call Exmas. Rather, may the grace of God through Jesus Christ his Son shine in your hearts and minds this Crissmas and every day.
Those of you who donated will be receiving a special thanks with more details and photos as soon as I can write that many emails. Thanks for your patience and support.
