I’m coming around to the idea that Christmas isn’t the problem. It’s that this time of year amplifies human stupidity as much as it does human goodness.
To a brain starving for more daylight, the stupidity will dwarf the goodness every time. So please indulge me while I point out a few things…
Mood music:
Principal Lorene Marx of Molin Upper Elementary School in Newburyport, Mass., isn’t letting her students get into the giving spirit because it might offend a few of the kids who don’t celebrate Christmas. This is stupid of her because instead of celebrating diversity and promoting all the different cultural festivities of the season she is teaching kids to be narrow-minded and blowing an opportunity to teach kids that it’s better to give than receive.
Hey, Principal Marx: Kindly review my post from a couple week’s ago: “Take Your ‘War on Christmas’ Talk and Shove It.” You’ll notice that while it’s mostly about the judgmental nature of my fellow Catholics this time of year, it’s also about people like you, who keep kids culturally ignorant in an attempt to not offend anyone.
While we’re on the subject of education, what is it about this season that makes people so harsh toward kids who are simply being kids? It’s a funny thing about kids — they have a habit of speaking their minds and there’s not a thing the parents can do because they’re not right there, standing over their children at the critical moment where they say the wrong thing — like talking to their friends about same-sex couples or the existence of Santa.
True, it would be better if these kids saved the gay marriage talk for high school and it would be brilliant if those who don’t believe in Santa would keep their traps shut for the sake of peers who still believe. But all that texting and bus stop gossiping between parents, making the offending kid out to be a demon seed? That kind of judgmental bullshit hurts the kids more than it helps. In fact, it doesn’t help at all.
Meanwhile, there’s a guy in my Facebook family who is on a crusade against all Muslims, everywhere. He posts articles from obscure websites and blogs about all the evils Muslims do.
There’s the Muslim who chopped off his wife’s fingers because she was getting an education behind his back. There were the Muslims who gang-raped a 14-year-old girl and chopped her into kebab meat. If true, these are terrible, terrible things and the perpetrators need to be punished.
The problem with this guy is that in running these articles — mixed with a variety of pro-Christian articles and sayings — he’s painting every Muslim on the planet with the same brush and spreading hate.
Christians are supposed to spread love, not hate. I say this as someone who grew up Jewish and converted to Christianity.
There are good people and evil people in this world and they have a diverse set of beliefs, some well-meaning but distorted and some just rotten to the core.
There are also many, many Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc. who practice an abundance of kindness toward their fellow man every day. Maybe you should be fair about it and mention them once in a while.
Some people will unfriend me over this post because they’ll know I’m talking about them.
To that I say go ahead, and Merry Christmas!
