The “Walk On Eggshells Union” (WOE-U) has been busy rewriting Christmas songs to make sure that no one could possibly be offended. Silent Night went from holy night to winter night after a New Jersey elementary school got involved. They changed the lyric to make the Christmas carol more “acceptable” to an apparently hypersensitive audience. Perhaps we will soon be going to hear the local orchestra deliver the stirring holiday rendition of Handel’s “The Promised and Expected Deliverer Described in Some Religious Texts”, the composition formerly known as “The Messiah”. While there have been denials everywhere that there is any “war” on Christmas it does seem that there is, at the very least, some politically correct police actions going on. So I decided to ask the question, “What would Saint Nicholas Do”? After all, the fourth-century bishop of Myra (present-day Turkey) was the role model for our present day Santa Clause. Saint Nicholas is said to have saved a poor family’s daughters from slavery by tossing some gold through the window that landed, according to legend, in stockings that had been hung up
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Today’s Dallas Morning News was a little tiptoe through a minefield of bad news and bad behavior. Dateline Houston… The pastor of the nation’s largest church and his family were asked to leave a plane after his wife failed to comply with a flight attendant’s instructions, the FBI said Tuesday. Houston Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, his wife Victoria Osteen, and their two children boarded a flight from Houston to Vail, Colo., Monday. The plane’s door had been closed when Victoria Osteen and a flight attendant had a disagreement. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how justified Mrs. Osteen was to be unhappy with the service from the flight attendants. I don’t know what kind of attitude the flight attendant displayed toward the Osteens. I do know that this unfortunate act will be the fodder of jokes and ridicule and demeaning of Christianity, and by extension, of Christ. When we take the awesome responsibility of calling ourselves Christians we
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One of my contributions with this modest little blog is to continually ask the tough questions. Recently I listened to  “Away in a Manger” at a Christmas program. You likely know verse three of the song. The cattle are lowingThe poor Baby wakesBut little Lord JesusNo crying He makes As I listened an important series of inquiries popped into my head. What noise were the cattle making when they started lowing? Was this normal cow talk? Did lowing just sound better than mooing in the lyric? And then the most important question came to mind…what is wrong with me? I can’t answer the last question but I can help with the others. Lowing is in fact defined as… The characteristic sound uttered by cattle; a moo.   –  dictionary.com So Jesus was awakened by the characteristic sound uttered by a cow. The next part of the lyric is disturbing to those of us who are parents. If any of the babies who grew
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I love Dave Barry. As long as he is alive I will not have the weirdest brain on the planet. Here is his take on the secularizing of Christmas greetings.       Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious timethat each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of hischoice.     In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christianscalled it “Christmas” and went to church; the Jews called it “Hanukkah” and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanukkah!”or (to the atheists) “Look out for the wall!”     These days, people say “Season’s Greetings,” which, when you thinkabout it, means nothing. It’s like walking up to somebody and saying“Appropriate Remark” in a loud, cheerful voice. But “Season’s Greetings”is safer, because it does not refer to any actual religion. Some day, Iimagine,
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As a public service I am providing a shopping guide for things you can give to Jesus on His upcoming birthday. Let’s be honest…giving the King of Kings and Lord of Lords a unique gift is really tough. Yesterday’s post examined the gifts brought to the young Christ child over 2,000 years by the three wise men, I had hoped that examining what the Magi brought might jump start our gift giving ideas.  By the way, there is a plaque that is available in catalogs this year with the title “What if They Had Been 3 Wise Women?” Here is the conclusion…. They would have asked directions. Brought practical gifts Made a casserole Cleaned the stable‘ Changed the baby And there would be peace on earth. Alert readers from yesterday remember that the first gift was gold. That is always a lovely gift. But now it gets a little tougher. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Matt 2:11 (MsgB) The second gift brought out of the luggage by the Magi was frankincense.
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We are just over a week from the hardest day of the year for most men. Many of us men give gifts to our significant others with fear and trembling. Humor columnist Dave Barry relates the confusion most men deal with when giving a gift to their wife. He could tell by her reaction to the gift that she had not been dreaming of getting an auto emergency kit, even though it was the deluxe model with booster cables and an air compressor. Clearly, this violated an important rule, but the man had idea what the rule was, and his wife was too upset to tell him. Barry continues his thoughtful treatise… So why is the Christmas season so difficult for men? There are many complex reasons, by which I mean: women. The problem goes back to the very first Christmas. We know from the Bible that the Wise Men showed up in Bethlehem and gave the baby Jesus gifts
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This is the time of the year when it gets a little crazy. The shopping list always includes some that are nearly impossible to buy for. And of course you have the concern that you will forget someone. Or the biggest  fear might be that a person who delivers a gift to you and you have a big bag of nothing for them. I was thinking this morning about someone that we (Christians) almost always acknowledge at Christmas but often neglect to think about what we are giving him. That person is the birthday boy himself…Jesus. I was thinking about what I could give Jesus in the middle of the brouhaha over his birthday. I wondered how the Lord would react to some of the tactics that are being used in his name?  I came across some quotes from Barry Lynn, the Executive Director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in an open letter to Jerry Falwell. “Since I debated you (Jerry Falwell) about
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