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I don't know why there was such a large space on this page before it actually showd my entry from last night, but I am hoping that this post fills all that in.

1 day left until Holiday.

Christmas/XMas/Holidays...I don't care anymore

Of course, I am sure that everyone is aware of this battle that has been raging politically, commercially, and spiritually over whether or not Christmas should still keep its name. Many stores have changed their "Christmas" stuff to "holiday" stuff. Legal battles are raging as to whether or not various school and libraries should be permitted to have "Christmas" things associated with them. The heat of the battle seems to be over that 5 letter word that is in Christmas- Christ. I think that it is a pretty stupid battle, but that is just my own opinion...but here's why-

Politically, I think that the ACLU and other entities like it should just shut up and try and play by their own rules. They seem to want freedom and equality...except for when it comes to what has now become the icon for Christian expression of this holiday. For some reason they want equality only if it can discriminate against the minority of those who still uphold keeping Christ in Christmas. I am not going to say much about it other than that they should just GET OVER IT. I'm sure that in practicality there are far fewer children and teachers in the schools and workplaces that are actually offended by a Christian practice of Christmas...at least most of the people that I come into contact with on a daily basis don't seem to give a rat's rear what it means to others as long as everyone has a good time. Why not? Why can't each have their own and we can all be friends? We don't need to involve judges and what not. It is just stupid.

Commercially, stores are being pretty naive to think that changing the signs to say "Holiday Sale" is really going to make that much of a difference by appealing to a larger crowd. I mean, let's face it, most people we know celebrate "Christmas" whatever that means to them. I know they are out there, but there are far less Jewish people who celebrate Hanukkah than Christmas...and some even mix the 2. And I know even less who celebrate Kwanza. So we are still back to the main 2 holidays that fall at this time of year- Christmas and New Year. But I guess to be fair, there are 4 holidays all together that could make up the cluster of "holidays" in which they speak, so I guess that technically they could be on the right track...but for Christian groups to start calling for the boycott of certain stores because they have taken the word "Christmas" out of their advertising is just childish...but I'm getting to that. I just think that the commercial market is getting ridiculous.

Spiritually, I personally am finding that this issue of Christmas is really revealing more and more the spiritual infancy and immaturity of Christianity in America [and probably the rest of the world that we have taken our philosophies and traditions to through our missionaries]

In the religious market of the Christian's spiritual economy Christmas is one of the best selling points. It is one of two times a year that has higher number attendance of "worship services" attended by the otherwise unchurched. Usually about a good fourth of the year is even dedicated to some kind of musical or play or production that will be given at this time.

Anyhoooo- I have been hearing much ado on the radio and Internet lately about all of these things concerning this holiday. I hear so much about all of the opposition from the secular world to try and snuff out this supposedly sacred time of year and how it hurts the Church so much. I hear people sincerely believe that December 25th is Jesus' birthday and that it should be celebrated year to year as a duty of his followers. I also hear how many even seem to take the approach that you can't even really truly claim to be a follower of Christ if you don't celebrate the holiday.

Then the latest news is all of the buzz and disturbance about some of the mega-churches across this country who will be closed on Christmas this year, which happens to fall on a Sunday. Oh the outrage that is being cried by many who believe that this is just a preliminary step toward the downfall of the Church in the 21st Century. Give me a break.

While I do admit, that as growing up as a good fundamentalist Christian that the idea of closing churches down on Christmas seemed like a strange idea to put into place this year, I do have to admit that since I have become a little less fundamentalistic and a little more realistic in my understanding of the Bible and spirituality [and I am no fan of mega-churches] I heard what I thought was a pretty good defense given by a church that was going to be closed this Sunday. I know that the message is a little lone (40 minutes) but if you want to hear what it was, then go to http://www.southlandchristian.org/assets/series/main/051211_3wishes_peace_jweece.mp3 and give it a listen.

I have to say that I applaud the pastor for delivering a message like this. It takes courage. It takes some studying. But most of all it takes the ability to take the heat.

What do I mean when I say that I think that the militant practice of Christmas and the demands for all that it brings reveals the spiritual infancy and immaturity of the American church? Well, it is like this; when you look at the church from its inception until now, you will see that there are many practices, doctrines, traditions and ideas that have developed over the years that have, for now, become commonplace. A good thorough observation of Church history will show that there has been much evolution that has taken place within the Protestant Church...a similar evolution to what we like to criticize the Catholics for.

When I say that, I mean that you will find many things that we have very deep convictions about that you just simply don't find in the Bible- Christmas celebration is one of them. I am not going to get into what I think about all of the origins of the Christmas celebrations of the Constantine era of the 3rd and 4th Century C.E. or the argument over holy verses non holy days as talked about in 1 Corinthians...but what I will say is this: There are a good number of people who seem to be willing to die on a hill called Christmas.....when they have never been asked by God to give their lives there. It is a man made tradition. It is temporal. It only means what you make it mean. Now am I saying that I am against it? Absolutely not. I firmly believe that to each is his own in these matters and it is not my job to tell someone what they should or shouldn't do in "celebration" of a certain thing or not...But what I do know about the holiday and what it is and is not...let's just say that I am happier leaving God out of it.

I am probably very different in that regard. I don't care if my family celebrates Christmas. In fact I enjoy it as a time for all of us to get together and give gifts and what not...but I don't want to buy into this lie that either
A.) We can somehow get away with only celebrating Jesus' birthday when the Scriptures don't command such a thing from us...or
B.) Try and mix the celebration of his birthday with our own gift exchange amongst ourselves with a nice tree and music and snacks.

In our house, we don't teach our kids about Santa. We let them know that some people believe in him, but that he is not real. That is just what we have chosen to do.

As a kid, it just never made much sense to me why we would "do" Christmas by starting out reading the account of Jesus' birth from Luke or Matthew, then praying, and then tearing into gifts and not saying another word about the Birthday Boy.

I could probably fill this entry will all kinds of other boring thoughts about the subject but I'll just leave it at this- HAPPY HOLIDAYS IS OK WITH ME! I am a Christian, but I would just as soon leave God out of this mess we have created in his name. I mean it is just irony that the right wingers have such a hell [or heaven, which ever you prefer] bent mission to preserve the morals and ideas that this country was supposedly founded on...and yet our Puritan forefathers rejected the celebration of Christmas as a Pagan holiday. That is irony at it's best.

So, even though it's not my bag...whoever is reading this- have a Merry Christmas, whatever it means to you. And don't let the man [whoever he is in your case] get you down.

It's now very late and I'm tired.

Christmasickness

Things in the Whitehead house have kind of sucked the last 2 days. My daughter has been sick. She has had a temperature that has been hovering between 99-104, and it just seems to be very inconsistent. We are taking her to the doctor tomorrow to find out if it is pneumonia or not. She is a very poor kid. When she was younger, she got shingles and toughed it out very well. She has taken this sickness pretty well too. She certainly has the heart of a child- full of wild ambition, energy, drive to keep going....But most of all a sense of need for me as her daddy.

Last night we had a lot of cuddle time together. She didn't feel well and she got the point where all she wanted to do was just sit in my lap on the couch and cuddle. I held her and she frequently fell asleep. She was just burning up and felt like crap but there was just something comforting about being held by daddy. Mommy could only take her so far.

The thing that killed me was that I couldn't do anything for her. All I could do is hold her and occasionally give her some medicine. I got worn out taking care of her. I got very little sleep and was starting to feel quite sick myself. Even though I love her very much and am committed to doing whatever I can to make life as well for her as possible, there are limits to what I can give and take. Unfortunately, at times I found myself becoming very short tempered and I didn't feel like I could keep going to help her. I hated that feeling. All I could think of was- Thank God that he isn't so selfish with me.

I prayed for her and asked that God would drive the sickness away so that she could be restored to full health. So far, I haven't really seen an ultimate answer to that prayer. Why? Could it be that she just needed time with Daddy? Could it be that there are times in life where God chooses not to heal someone because that is his avenue of bringing them back to him? I have to confess that to us going through it, it sure seems like a pretty shitty method of getting the job done, but I reckon that he knows what he is doing.

Perhaps the ultimate healing is just the knowledge that Daddy is there? I don't know. I do know though that no matter how bad she felt, she seemed to find comfort in my lap or me lying next to her in bed. That brought joy to my heart that she trusted in me to get her through. What a parable. What a lesson for such a stubborn, selfish, self-centered, instant gratification needing S.O.B. like myself.

I really do hope that she gets better soon, but I enjoy my time with her in the mean time.

We seem to always have some kind of sickness at Christmas time. That doesn't really bother me though since Christmas isn't that big of a deal for me, but I hate how it affects everyone else.

God help us. We need you.

Weapons of mass destruction

I don't know why I was thinking about this this morning. Perhaps it is because of all of the Christian "Pro-Bush/War" stuff that I hear on the radio. Don't get me wrong, I am not against Bush or against the Republicans per se, but at this point in time it seems to me that whatever President Bush or the Bush administration does is being praised by the conservative "moral majority."

The whole war in Iraq supposedly began as an attempt to go get Osama Bin Laden in retaliation and "justice" for the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon. Then since we supposedly couldn't find Bin Laden, the focus was turned toward finding weapons of mass destruction. We didn't find any of those either. Then the focus shifted once we found Saddam Hussein to helping the Iraqi's secure freedom...Or at least try and get them a "civilized" [Americanized] form of Democracy like we have, and also our little-sister-in-the-pocket Israel.

Anyways, it just seems like no matter how intellectually dishonest conservative politics have become, the Moral Majority just continues to follow suit. It really makes conservatives look bad since they have control, seemingly, in the House and Senate. Now I am not saying that I am opposed to finding Bin Laden, Hussein, finding weapons of mass destruction, or helping Iraq come out from under its tyrannical dictatorial regime. It is neither here nor there as to what my feelings on each of these things is, but this is my problem-

In the midst of all this fighting, and also in reference back to the Vietnam War which many are now likening this "occupation" in Iraq to; why are so many people still backing what is going on in the name of "helping keep America free?" What does this have to do with us? Since when has an attack or two from foreign terrorists become a major threat to national security in this country? We have had more attacks by our own natives than we have a couple of Muslims from across the globe. And when it comes to "fighting for our freedom" I just don't buy it. It seems to me like that pill would be easier to swallow if the war was actually going on here on our soil where we actually were fighting for our freedom.

America has been the world police for quite some time. Earlier this week I even heard a soundbyte of President Bush admitting that some of his actions were, in retrospect, based on either false or incomplete information, but he still doesn't feel bad about any of it and sees it all as necessary. He also said that the reason why he didn't let certain things go when he made executive decisions was because he didn't feel that certain foreign affairs were in the best interest of America. That seems to me like a pretty selfish reason to do anything.

Well, what does all of this have to do with where I am going? Why did I mention the moral majority? Because in my eyes they are the biggest weapon of mass destruction that the world has ever seen. The sad reality though is that they are more stealthy than anyone wants to believe. They make policies and try to push laws that they believe are based on upholding Judeo-Christian ethics, but from everything that I have observed, much of it lacks the actual biblical backing for the mandates that they demand.

Just like much of the US policy quietly dictates that the ultimate goal is to convert the rest of the world to democracy....This moral majority seems bent only on ruling our lives with a theocratic dictatorship....under their control.

Does it hurt politics? No, but it does hurt their "witness" for God

I hope that at some point we can see all of the events that happen in the world at any given moments so that we can see in them a reflection of what is going in inside of us that we don't want to see so that we can repent from them.

So to Ted Haggard, Jerry Fallwel, Pat Robertson, President Bush...etc. If we're going to try and play by the rules, let's go back and examine with care the original rule book.

The 5th Anniversary

Today was my fifth wedding anniversary to my wife. This has been a very interesting and amazing 5 years. When we first got married I don't know if we really knew what we were doing, but it was the start to a very wonderful journey.

For various reasons, we had been very close to separation in the past. Even though we didn't really want that to happen for several reasons, we just didn't know what to do. But then thankfully through the work of the grace of God, we have managed to be able to manage ourselves in such a way that we can finally create some kind of compatibility for the two of us who are at the complete opposite sides of the personality spectrums.

I am glad that things have pulled together. I am glad for us. I am glad for our kids. I am glad for our friends. I am glad for everyone who our lives will touch. I am glad that even though we had our times of hell, that we can show the rest of the world the faithfulness of God by our faithfulness to each other.

For quite some time I did feel as though I truly did love my wife, but I just didn't like her. Now I love her and she is my best friend. We can finally understand together what it means to find strength in our shared weakness.

So here I am; a husband of 5 years. How many more anniversaries will there be- 5, 10, 60? I don't know. All I know is that I can't wait to see the numbers grow.

My First Post

This is my first post. I am not new to the whole blogosphere, but I am new to having my own blog. I have many things to talk about. I am going to keep this post simple though. Many things that I think about have been put into my mind by various forms of media; primarily the Internet and radio.

Keep your seatbelts fastened, it may be bumpy from time to time.