Merry Xmas

When I was a child I was told in was inappropriate and irreverent to write X-mas. The teachers said using the X instead of writing Christ was a way of leaving Christ out of Christmas.

Years later I learned the truth.  For one thing the letter X is not the third to the last letter of  the English alphabet, like in XYZ.  It is a Greek letter, and pronounced chi (ki).  And that letter is the first letter of the word Christ in its original Greek language.  It legitimately represented the word Kristos or Christ.

So Xmas is in fact Christmas.

The Connecticut Slaughter

Twenty-eight children and adults have been murdered.    The first priority for all of us in the U.S. is to feel that pain, actualize the sorrow, weep and be in anguish.  Jesus said "weep with those who weep".

The media is preoccupied with obviously relevant issues like gun control and mental illness.  Those must be considered, but for right now they distract us and pull us away from the heart-brokenness we must share.  The causes of this incredible massacre must be faced but for the time being this is a time of weeping and mourning.  

Getting at causes eases our pain.  Such concerns move us out of our hearts and bowels into our heads, into thinking instead of feeling.  That process should wait. It is a process of too quickly moving on and too inapprpriately cogitating instead of a letting the pain be.

The only comfort is Jesus' love for every child.  They are safe in the arms of Jesus--every one of them.  The parents would have them back in their own arms, and so would we,  but Christmas reminds us of the powerful, beautiful love of Jesus for every child.