Filipovic's tantrum would have had an impact on me a couple of months ago but now it just sounds out of date and irrelevant, an atavistic remnant of a once important fad like pet rocks. The poor woman is grieving after a central part of her identity has been discredited so let's all just give her some space to work things out. It's important to remember that she is now the odd one out; she's the crazy aunt at the Christmas table who needs soothing.
"The Resistance will rise again!" Sorry Aunt Jill, no it won't.
For what it is worth to readers here, I always remember at this time of year that it was Judaism and then Christianity which raised mankind out of the lower cold-blooded reptile brain into the new consciousness of human empathy.... and the moral code which built Western civilization.
The Old and the New Testament are united, and many blessings to Christians and Jews alike as we celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah on the same day this year of our Lord/YHWY 2024.
Sasha, you are one of my favorite writers on Substack. I love how you share enough personal history to give your articles depth and authenticity, but you never lapse into the narcissistic me-me-me babble that is so common now. I love how your commitment to the truth led you to ultimately reject the leftist brainwashing you’d been marinating in. I love how your heart has opened to people and ideas you had been taught to despise.
Your journey is much like my own. I was raised as an atheist too, by very liberal parents, but now I’m happily far right and-are you ready?—Catholic! You may
not be there yet but Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you pray sincerely, he will answer you. I wish you the best, dear Sasha, and Merry Christmas.
Thank you, Sasha. Merry Christmas from Salem, Massachusetts (where we love witches!).
My prayer for you, Sasha, is that, in 2025, you would commit yourself to exploring Christianity just as deep as you did the MAGA movement in the past few years.
My exact prayer is that through an active faith in Christ, your heart would explode with joy, your anxiety and poor sleep would dissipate and that you would see your mission in the world as loving the world around you despite its inherent depravity and evilness.
You’ve spent a lifetime as a cultural warrior - imagine if you were a warrior for something more eternal and more meaningful like the everlasting God, who loves you beyond you can imagine??
Knowing you, I would start with going deep into Russell Brand, Andrew Klavan and Jordan Peterson. Heck, Denzel was just baptized at 70!!!!
Sasha, a great start point for you to explore the everlasting goodness that Christianity has poured out upon believer and unbeliever is Tom Holland’s 2019 book, ‘Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Re-Made the World”
It's not a merry Xmas for the J6 protestors. Put them in your prayers.
January 6th. The hit song that cuts through government propaganda to reveal the real story of injustice, where the punishment never fit the crime. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/january-6
It won’t be long now…and remember, history is replete with examples of people who suffered for their beliefs. It’s up to the rest of us to honor them for the suffering they’ve been forced to endure!
There is no such thing as Xmas. There is Christmas, the Christ mass. I am neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. I am a Reformed Christian. But we all come from the same root. We share the Nicene Creed and some councils and much shared theology now. We are the small c, catholic universal Christian church. Our ultimate roots are the roots of Abraham and our older cousins, the Jewish peoples. Christians are grafted into the root of Abraham now.
My wife and I visited Greece and Turkey last October. The first Christian church was Greek. We were able to visit the former Constantinople and entered the Haggai Sophia and Haggai Irene. This is where the Nicene Creed was born. It wasn’t Rome. I have been to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee and saw the statue of Simon Peter. There was no pope at all until the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century Anno Domini . King Jesus has been and always will always be the only head of the Christian church. He needs no vicar. He is returning soon to redeem His people. This is our Blessed Hope. When I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre several times in old town Jerusalem, the Ethiopians were on the roof. The Coptics had their own chapel. The Greeks and Roman’s had their own sections of the church. And the Armenians had what was described as the tomb of Jesus within their kiosk. The first Christian nation was Armenia.
I have never been to a Roman Catholic mass. I have been to an Orthodox church service where they sing song their Divine Liturgy. I have never been to an Orthodox Jewish service. I was welcomed kindly to worship YHWH at the western wall in the left side of Herod’s expanded Temple, just the wall, to the left in an alcove there, right inside the Dung Gate, above the City of David. Women to the right there. The Jewish rabbis were ultra orthodox studying the Talmud, and bobbing back and forth then, and giving blessings and prayers for the men and boys. It seemed wonderful to me, except for the fact that I am a Christian and wished they knew who their Messaich was, Jesus, Yeshua.
I was raised as a conservative Roman Catholic, Tom. Attended Catholic Schools. Taught by orders of Sisters, with whom we attended Mass every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Confession and Stations of the Cross once a month. My mother's family had said the Rosary every evening growing up, though I was more sporadic there. By my late teens I had too many questions and not enough answers in return. I could see the weak spots.
In adulthood I was in a position to regularly attend an Anglican Cathedral. When the children came along, my husband and I had them baptized Catholic. They attended Catholic schools too, though the schools themselves had been watered-down since my era. We went to Saturday evening Catholic Mass each week, followed by two Sunday services at the Anglican Cathedral for exposure to Christianity through the magnificent music there.
The conclusion I have come to is that it is Christianity I want. It comes in different flavours, from different historical backgrounds and places. To my knowledge, no one does it perfectly. And even perfection might have its unforeseen problems. I understand the principles well enough now that I take it where I find it.
The real problem would be in failing to have Christianity in one's life at all.
Thank you, Mink. Though I do not agree with you that perusing a website is going to answer the questions of someone who has already gone through far more than the basics.
I am fully aware of what Christ did. You might stop with the seemingly clever come-backs. That alone was outside the intended Christ-spirit. And why some have turned from it. Finger-wagging is not the way.
I understand Catholicism better than most. I had been steeped in the practices and principles since birth. Then by high school, in the Theology. I know what they have to tell me. The problem was that there were gaps between this knowledge and the human reality I found all around me. I was told it was a divine mystery.
I did not leave Catholicism. Though I do not practice the rituals as ardently as I once did. Catholicism is imperfect, Mink. Like the human beings who have interpreted it and promulgated it over the centuries. It can also be infiltrated by those who bear ill will, as we have seen.
I think it is like a spectrum, where there are two polar extremes, and much middle-ground. Atheism is one extreme. Church-worship (of any church) is another. The wise person avoids these two extremes, and finds a balanced approach in the middle. You are not a more enlightened person for being an anti-religion atheist, nor for being perfectly bound to religious practices and rules. Neither of these is where the wise and godly person goes.
I have far more in common with my faithful Presbyterian neighbour or observant Jewish friend than I do with an atheist. We all have a connection with the loving God of Abraham.
Learn to live the Christ spirit, my friend, as opposed to the institutional rules. The problem is in those who do not have that spirit in their lives at all. It matters. I certainly encourage them to find it. The Church can make it much easier to identify with that, up to a point. And when raising children. Although be careful not to worship the Church rather than God.
The site linked to is a "trad" site whose writer knows full well that the Church has been infiltrated. If the Church was the Church before the infiltration, it only means that Catholicism as practiced before the infiltration is still the right approach. Catholicism as practiced may be imperfect, but the Church is perfect, and holy, and one, and apostolic. Be careful of going new agey and replacing Christ with a "spiritual but not religious, all religions lead to the same place" feel-goodism. Christ is the only Way to the Father. He saves whom He wants, of course, and is the sole Judge, but He gave us a Church and sacraments and showed us the way of perfection.
If there was no Pope until the 5th century, then who was Pope Linus? And the first Church was Roman since Judea at that time was part of Rome, and St. Peter (and St. Paul) went to Rome. (P.S. The rabbis at the Western Wall: their Talmud says Jesus Christ is boiling in hot excrement in Hell).
And I quote, "And he puzzled 3 hours, till his puzzler was sore. Maybe, Christmas, he thought doesn't come from a store. Perhaps Christmas he thought means a little bit more.
And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say. That the Grinch's small heart grew 3 sizes that day. And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight. He wizzed in his sleigh through the bright morning light. He brought back the toys and the food for their feast. And he, HE himself carved the Roast Beast."
Find me a better explanation in the entire cannon of western literature.
I am 83. If you haven’t seen The Grinch, you are REALLY missing something!
Live a little. I loved that Sasha brought it up as a description of the past four years of being under the Left. I was always thinking of that movie during that time. Thank you Sasha. AND MERRY CHRISYMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I love both the classical Christmas carols of our Western tradition (they are often extraordinary).....
AND I used to watch the Dr. Seuss television rendition of The Grinch with my children when they were young. If there were reruns of the 1970s Waltons' Christmas and the 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas, we would watch those too!
As a Jewish American, I really love the spirit of Christmas. Christmas movies, Christmas songs & the unity of humankind in good. It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite. I do wish & hope we can return to putting good morals back into our culture, into our movies & music. As you say, prior to the '60s & '70s, the culture included Christian themes and lessons. Which is good for everyone. I sincerely hope we can return to that.
My husband went to a public high school that had 50% of a Jewish population.
There was a Rabbi in our town that told his congregation that if they planned to
have an Easter Egg hunt, would they please have it in their back yards (Ha),
He was instrumental by getting the two communities together by his spell binding
book reviews on Sunday afternoons. We have celebrated with our children’s
school friends Passovers, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs , and other services at his
synagogue. At one of the Bat Mitzvahs, I asked another Rabbi if they had a program for special needs children. He said no. I then told him about the one
that had developed at our church where ‘normal’ and special needs kids
meet together. The next year I found out that his congregation had created one.
In our church there was a member that also belonged to a Jewish Congregation.
He had also faithfully gone to Torah study for 20 years!
We put this years “coincidence” of Christmas and Hanukkah being celebrated
the same day on the calendar under the label of “signs and wonders”.
The Jews were destroyed in 70 Anno Domini when the Temple and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed utterly by the Roman legions. The Jews scattered across the ancient world. The diaspora. The Roman’s destroyed Masada as well. I have been there several times. It is totally awesome to see and understand what happened there. Looking down to the Dead Sea and the Sodom and Gomorrah plains to the south. My wife and I stayed at the En Gedi kibbutz. We went to the spa on the Dead Sea. It was spectacular. The lowest elevation on earth we ever experienced. The gardens of En Gedi were amazing. Almost anything in the earth will grow there.
No worries, the Jewish peoples are our older cousins , and true Christians love them and will protect them now and in the future.
Our blessed savior Jesus Christ was a Jew who fulfilled all of God’s commandments for human beings in His life and work. YHWH is our God. And no other. Cousins can be irritating at times. But we are commanded by Jesus to love them. And we do.
One more thought here. Both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter were martyred before 70 Anno Domini. By Nero in the 60’s. Paul was a Roman citizen and he had his head cut off. Peter was not a Roman citizen and was crucified upside down. He had humility and did not wish do anything that Jesus did not do. Nero was an extremely bad dude, who took a young teenager African boy and had him castrated. Then Nero “married “ him and raped him continuously. Nero called him his wife and put women clothes on him. Sound familiar folks? Then the African boy committed suicide. Sound familiar folks now? Then Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed Christians for his evil actions. And started feeding Christians to the lions and burning Christian’s as torches on the Appian way slathered with tar and pitch meant for ship building.
Does this sound like the World Economic Forum to you? It does to me, right now.
If you please, I can show you the history of Nero. Caligula was worse.
King Jesus is loving, warm, and the Prince of peace.
The festival of light, to cleanse the Temple after the desecration from Antiochus Epiphanies put a pig on the altar. He was a Greek ruler. The Romans came later.
Jewish folks need to know who their Messaich is. It is Yeshua.
My god Sasha Stone what a beautiful column. Thank-you.🥰 This Christmas is sweeter for many of us I think. It is for me! I wish you love and light during Christmas and throughout 2025.
Merry Christmas. I am older than you and thus on a different trajectory. Born in 48 to a conventionally religious but not especially devout family. Parents had 5 children. Only I survived more than 3 days. So I grew up as an only which made me the total center of attention at Christmas. My mother was a only child too and my father one of two. So not much family other than some cousins in my mother's generation who were about my age. The 60s came and I went to the Left driven mostly by the war. Returning to my roots now though the Right is the peace party now. Stayed Left for decades though less and less engaged. Lucky to be established in work force by the Crash of 74. Never did find religion but always did traditional secular Christmas for kids.
Even conspired with elder daughter to get her to pretend to believe in Santa so as to shield younger from finding out. Mother very secular too but did Christmas in the Swiss way for them. Drifted Right from some combination of having children and watching the rising crazy of the Left. Still not very engaged. Worked in higher education so mostly around leftists but I was a financial guy so got radicalized during TEA party era. More radical now. Don't really do much for Christmas now. Not the same without kids around if you aren't religious. Taking a new look at religion now but no family along for journey. Everyone dead or scattered. Good to read of other's journeys.
Dear Richard, you are not alone this Christmas, for the Christ of Christmas came for you and is with you now, waiting for you to make room for him in the manger of your heart. You are not alone and never have been. He is only waiting to be born in you. Merry Christmas!
Richard, my first year as a married woman I remember thinking that Christmas somehow didn’t seem to be as it always was for me. I remembered the happy family Christmases, my grandparents, parents and little brother and all the joy.. Suddenly the answer came to me. I realized I had to make Christmas happen! I went to church and celebrated with others and put a few things around the house that reminded me it was Christmas. I have started a new tradition of using the month of December to give to charities that I like. This year I gave to a charity called the Dave Thomas foundation for adoptions among others This is another way to make Christmas happen. I hope next year you gather with others in some church of your choosing to. “ make Christmas happen” in your heart. It is a beautiful contagion! Now I am 83 and I still feel this way. God bless you and Merry Christmas!
Your poor mom and dad having four children die in child birth. I’m 9th of 10; 8 boys, 2 girls. Lots of first and second cousins also. Over 30 nephews and nieces. I was similar in terms of Democrat younger in opposition to Vietnam. Moved Libertarian as part of protest to Banker Bailouts. MAGA made Trump and Musk. Merry Christmas, Richard.
I think many of us went very left because of Nam. I was just a kid, but very political. My instinct (and having a small business) made me Libertarian , and a fiscal Conservative. We find each other through wonderful communicators like Sasha!
Even British Biologist Richard Dawkins -- an outspoken smart-set atheist for decades -- took an honest look at the fact that Britain may well dissolve under this WOKE rot.....and is changing his mind and habits.
Try finding a local congregation to just at least plug into now and then. It is good for the soul. My husband and I go - pretty much just for Christmas, but used to be more involved. It does one good to be w/ others to celebrate the joys of life and be their s support in times of sorrow.
Thank you for this ancient hymn. This is the only sort of music we listen to on Christmas Day. Sacred hymns. God is good, all the time. And King Jesus is returning soon to redeem His people.
Merry Christmas, Sasha Stone! Jesus loves you and so do we.
We readers might have saved you, dear Sasha, but you saved us. May we all "Repeat the sounding joy" over and over and yet over again.
So TRUE!!!
Filipovic's tantrum would have had an impact on me a couple of months ago but now it just sounds out of date and irrelevant, an atavistic remnant of a once important fad like pet rocks. The poor woman is grieving after a central part of her identity has been discredited so let's all just give her some space to work things out. It's important to remember that she is now the odd one out; she's the crazy aunt at the Christmas table who needs soothing.
"The Resistance will rise again!" Sorry Aunt Jill, no it won't.
🎯 exactly
The Christmas ham is more grounded in reality and truth than Jill might ever be.
For what it is worth to readers here, I always remember at this time of year that it was Judaism and then Christianity which raised mankind out of the lower cold-blooded reptile brain into the new consciousness of human empathy.... and the moral code which built Western civilization.
I am in awe of that. We mustn't lose it.
The Old and the New Testament are united, and many blessings to Christians and Jews alike as we celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah on the same day this year of our Lord/YHWY 2024.
Both celebrations of light in the darkness.
We literally became a different breed of human beings after we moved forward and gained the ability for human empathy.
As different as the Normals from the WOKE.
The Christian doctrine of Original sin shaped Western culture and society like a lightning bolt.
Sasha, you are one of my favorite writers on Substack. I love how you share enough personal history to give your articles depth and authenticity, but you never lapse into the narcissistic me-me-me babble that is so common now. I love how your commitment to the truth led you to ultimately reject the leftist brainwashing you’d been marinating in. I love how your heart has opened to people and ideas you had been taught to despise.
Your journey is much like my own. I was raised as an atheist too, by very liberal parents, but now I’m happily far right and-are you ready?—Catholic! You may
not be there yet but Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you pray sincerely, he will answer you. I wish you the best, dear Sasha, and Merry Christmas.
Thank you, Sasha. Merry Christmas from Salem, Massachusetts (where we love witches!).
My prayer for you, Sasha, is that, in 2025, you would commit yourself to exploring Christianity just as deep as you did the MAGA movement in the past few years.
My exact prayer is that through an active faith in Christ, your heart would explode with joy, your anxiety and poor sleep would dissipate and that you would see your mission in the world as loving the world around you despite its inherent depravity and evilness.
You’ve spent a lifetime as a cultural warrior - imagine if you were a warrior for something more eternal and more meaningful like the everlasting God, who loves you beyond you can imagine??
Knowing you, I would start with going deep into Russell Brand, Andrew Klavan and Jordan Peterson. Heck, Denzel was just baptized at 70!!!!
Sasha, a great start point for you to explore the everlasting goodness that Christianity has poured out upon believer and unbeliever is Tom Holland’s 2019 book, ‘Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Re-Made the World”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43885149-dominion
Amen! Also C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity”.
It's not a merry Xmas for the J6 protestors. Put them in your prayers.
January 6th. The hit song that cuts through government propaganda to reveal the real story of injustice, where the punishment never fit the crime. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/january-6
It won’t be long now…and remember, history is replete with examples of people who suffered for their beliefs. It’s up to the rest of us to honor them for the suffering they’ve been forced to endure!
Amen
Britain's Tommy Robinson too:
"Tommy Robinson's prison governor admits he's being punished for 'his ideology' " (Rebel News)
There is no such thing as Xmas. There is Christmas, the Christ mass. I am neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. I am a Reformed Christian. But we all come from the same root. We share the Nicene Creed and some councils and much shared theology now. We are the small c, catholic universal Christian church. Our ultimate roots are the roots of Abraham and our older cousins, the Jewish peoples. Christians are grafted into the root of Abraham now.
My wife and I visited Greece and Turkey last October. The first Christian church was Greek. We were able to visit the former Constantinople and entered the Haggai Sophia and Haggai Irene. This is where the Nicene Creed was born. It wasn’t Rome. I have been to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee and saw the statue of Simon Peter. There was no pope at all until the Western Roman Empire fell in the 5th century Anno Domini . King Jesus has been and always will always be the only head of the Christian church. He needs no vicar. He is returning soon to redeem His people. This is our Blessed Hope. When I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre several times in old town Jerusalem, the Ethiopians were on the roof. The Coptics had their own chapel. The Greeks and Roman’s had their own sections of the church. And the Armenians had what was described as the tomb of Jesus within their kiosk. The first Christian nation was Armenia.
I have never been to a Roman Catholic mass. I have been to an Orthodox church service where they sing song their Divine Liturgy. I have never been to an Orthodox Jewish service. I was welcomed kindly to worship YHWH at the western wall in the left side of Herod’s expanded Temple, just the wall, to the left in an alcove there, right inside the Dung Gate, above the City of David. Women to the right there. The Jewish rabbis were ultra orthodox studying the Talmud, and bobbing back and forth then, and giving blessings and prayers for the men and boys. It seemed wonderful to me, except for the fact that I am a Christian and wished they knew who their Messaich was, Jesus, Yeshua.
I was raised as a conservative Roman Catholic, Tom. Attended Catholic Schools. Taught by orders of Sisters, with whom we attended Mass every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. Confession and Stations of the Cross once a month. My mother's family had said the Rosary every evening growing up, though I was more sporadic there. By my late teens I had too many questions and not enough answers in return. I could see the weak spots.
In adulthood I was in a position to regularly attend an Anglican Cathedral. When the children came along, my husband and I had them baptized Catholic. They attended Catholic schools too, though the schools themselves had been watered-down since my era. We went to Saturday evening Catholic Mass each week, followed by two Sunday services at the Anglican Cathedral for exposure to Christianity through the magnificent music there.
The conclusion I have come to is that it is Christianity I want. It comes in different flavours, from different historical backgrounds and places. To my knowledge, no one does it perfectly. And even perfection might have its unforeseen problems. I understand the principles well enough now that I take it where I find it.
The real problem would be in failing to have Christianity in one's life at all.
Merry Christmas!
If you want answers about the Catholic Faith, see FishEaters.com Remember: Christ set up a Church, not a book club.
Thank you, Mink. Though I do not agree with you that perusing a website is going to answer the questions of someone who has already gone through far more than the basics.
I am fully aware of what Christ did. You might stop with the seemingly clever come-backs. That alone was outside the intended Christ-spirit. And why some have turned from it. Finger-wagging is not the way.
I understand Catholicism better than most. I had been steeped in the practices and principles since birth. Then by high school, in the Theology. I know what they have to tell me. The problem was that there were gaps between this knowledge and the human reality I found all around me. I was told it was a divine mystery.
I did not leave Catholicism. Though I do not practice the rituals as ardently as I once did. Catholicism is imperfect, Mink. Like the human beings who have interpreted it and promulgated it over the centuries. It can also be infiltrated by those who bear ill will, as we have seen.
I think it is like a spectrum, where there are two polar extremes, and much middle-ground. Atheism is one extreme. Church-worship (of any church) is another. The wise person avoids these two extremes, and finds a balanced approach in the middle. You are not a more enlightened person for being an anti-religion atheist, nor for being perfectly bound to religious practices and rules. Neither of these is where the wise and godly person goes.
I have far more in common with my faithful Presbyterian neighbour or observant Jewish friend than I do with an atheist. We all have a connection with the loving God of Abraham.
Learn to live the Christ spirit, my friend, as opposed to the institutional rules. The problem is in those who do not have that spirit in their lives at all. It matters. I certainly encourage them to find it. The Church can make it much easier to identify with that, up to a point. And when raising children. Although be careful not to worship the Church rather than God.
You might listen to the various interviews with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
The site linked to is a "trad" site whose writer knows full well that the Church has been infiltrated. If the Church was the Church before the infiltration, it only means that Catholicism as practiced before the infiltration is still the right approach. Catholicism as practiced may be imperfect, but the Church is perfect, and holy, and one, and apostolic. Be careful of going new agey and replacing Christ with a "spiritual but not religious, all religions lead to the same place" feel-goodism. Christ is the only Way to the Father. He saves whom He wants, of course, and is the sole Judge, but He gave us a Church and sacraments and showed us the way of perfection.
Don't fall into the state of Catholic scrupulosity. There are priests who counsel those who do. So they are able to move beyond that form of OCD.
You are welcome to your opinions. As I am to mine.
If there was no Pope until the 5th century, then who was Pope Linus? And the first Church was Roman since Judea at that time was part of Rome, and St. Peter (and St. Paul) went to Rome. (P.S. The rabbis at the Western Wall: their Talmud says Jesus Christ is boiling in hot excrement in Hell).
...wherein he proves the existence of God.
What a wonderful article. It brings tears to my eyes. You are an amazing person.
Hear hear!
You are an inspiration to me, Sasha! I only wish several of my sisters could see the light as you have. God bless and Merry Christmas!🎄
your sisters- and my friends!!
And I quote, "And he puzzled 3 hours, till his puzzler was sore. Maybe, Christmas, he thought doesn't come from a store. Perhaps Christmas he thought means a little bit more.
And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say. That the Grinch's small heart grew 3 sizes that day. And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight. He wizzed in his sleigh through the bright morning light. He brought back the toys and the food for their feast. And he, HE himself carved the Roast Beast."
Find me a better explanation in the entire cannon of western literature.
Merry Christmas Sasha.
Never saw the grinch movie and have no idea about what you are talking about now. I am an old man now. I am not a fan of popular culture.
I am 83. If you haven’t seen The Grinch, you are REALLY missing something!
Live a little. I loved that Sasha brought it up as a description of the past four years of being under the Left. I was always thinking of that movie during that time. Thank you Sasha. AND MERRY CHRISYMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
WHOOPS! MERRY CHRISTMAS!
You’re a wonderfully young one, Ms Jane Hume.
I love both the classical Christmas carols of our Western tradition (they are often extraordinary).....
AND I used to watch the Dr. Seuss television rendition of The Grinch with my children when they were young. If there were reruns of the 1970s Waltons' Christmas and the 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas, we would watch those too!
You can get it streaming on your home PC. I think that you would be glad that you did. It is a cute Christmas movie with a message.
Merry Christmas Sasha!
As a Jewish American, I really love the spirit of Christmas. Christmas movies, Christmas songs & the unity of humankind in good. It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite. I do wish & hope we can return to putting good morals back into our culture, into our movies & music. As you say, prior to the '60s & '70s, the culture included Christian themes and lessons. Which is good for everyone. I sincerely hope we can return to that.
My husband went to a public high school that had 50% of a Jewish population.
There was a Rabbi in our town that told his congregation that if they planned to
have an Easter Egg hunt, would they please have it in their back yards (Ha),
He was instrumental by getting the two communities together by his spell binding
book reviews on Sunday afternoons. We have celebrated with our children’s
school friends Passovers, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs , and other services at his
synagogue. At one of the Bat Mitzvahs, I asked another Rabbi if they had a program for special needs children. He said no. I then told him about the one
that had developed at our church where ‘normal’ and special needs kids
meet together. The next year I found out that his congregation had created one.
In our church there was a member that also belonged to a Jewish Congregation.
He had also faithfully gone to Torah study for 20 years!
We put this years “coincidence” of Christmas and Hanukkah being celebrated
the same day on the calendar under the label of “signs and wonders”.
So Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah everyone!
Happy Hanukkah, Sally.
Merry Christmas Sasha and everyone else. May we all make use of the gifts we have been given.
Thank you for including happy Hanukkah. This is also the historical time that the Jews rose up and defeated those who tried to oppress them.
Happy Hanukkah, Allan!
The Jews were destroyed in 70 Anno Domini when the Temple and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed utterly by the Roman legions. The Jews scattered across the ancient world. The diaspora. The Roman’s destroyed Masada as well. I have been there several times. It is totally awesome to see and understand what happened there. Looking down to the Dead Sea and the Sodom and Gomorrah plains to the south. My wife and I stayed at the En Gedi kibbutz. We went to the spa on the Dead Sea. It was spectacular. The lowest elevation on earth we ever experienced. The gardens of En Gedi were amazing. Almost anything in the earth will grow there.
No worries, the Jewish peoples are our older cousins , and true Christians love them and will protect them now and in the future.
Our blessed savior Jesus Christ was a Jew who fulfilled all of God’s commandments for human beings in His life and work. YHWH is our God. And no other. Cousins can be irritating at times. But we are commanded by Jesus to love them. And we do.
Merry Christmas 🎄
One more thought here. Both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter were martyred before 70 Anno Domini. By Nero in the 60’s. Paul was a Roman citizen and he had his head cut off. Peter was not a Roman citizen and was crucified upside down. He had humility and did not wish do anything that Jesus did not do. Nero was an extremely bad dude, who took a young teenager African boy and had him castrated. Then Nero “married “ him and raped him continuously. Nero called him his wife and put women clothes on him. Sound familiar folks? Then the African boy committed suicide. Sound familiar folks now? Then Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed Christians for his evil actions. And started feeding Christians to the lions and burning Christian’s as torches on the Appian way slathered with tar and pitch meant for ship building.
Does this sound like the World Economic Forum to you? It does to me, right now.
If you please, I can show you the history of Nero. Caligula was worse.
King Jesus is loving, warm, and the Prince of peace.
The festival of light, to cleanse the Temple after the desecration from Antiochus Epiphanies put a pig on the altar. He was a Greek ruler. The Romans came later.
Jewish folks need to know who their Messaich is. It is Yeshua.
My god Sasha Stone what a beautiful column. Thank-you.🥰 This Christmas is sweeter for many of us I think. It is for me! I wish you love and light during Christmas and throughout 2025.
Me as well…. My heart is killing me now, and I am more happy now. King Jesus is waiting for me now. God is good, all the time.
Merry Christmas. I am older than you and thus on a different trajectory. Born in 48 to a conventionally religious but not especially devout family. Parents had 5 children. Only I survived more than 3 days. So I grew up as an only which made me the total center of attention at Christmas. My mother was a only child too and my father one of two. So not much family other than some cousins in my mother's generation who were about my age. The 60s came and I went to the Left driven mostly by the war. Returning to my roots now though the Right is the peace party now. Stayed Left for decades though less and less engaged. Lucky to be established in work force by the Crash of 74. Never did find religion but always did traditional secular Christmas for kids.
Even conspired with elder daughter to get her to pretend to believe in Santa so as to shield younger from finding out. Mother very secular too but did Christmas in the Swiss way for them. Drifted Right from some combination of having children and watching the rising crazy of the Left. Still not very engaged. Worked in higher education so mostly around leftists but I was a financial guy so got radicalized during TEA party era. More radical now. Don't really do much for Christmas now. Not the same without kids around if you aren't religious. Taking a new look at religion now but no family along for journey. Everyone dead or scattered. Good to read of other's journeys.
Dear Richard, you are not alone this Christmas, for the Christ of Christmas came for you and is with you now, waiting for you to make room for him in the manger of your heart. You are not alone and never have been. He is only waiting to be born in you. Merry Christmas!
You are why I like Christians
You are never alone, Richard. He is always waiting beside you, just a heartbeat away. Merry Christmas.
Richard, my first year as a married woman I remember thinking that Christmas somehow didn’t seem to be as it always was for me. I remembered the happy family Christmases, my grandparents, parents and little brother and all the joy.. Suddenly the answer came to me. I realized I had to make Christmas happen! I went to church and celebrated with others and put a few things around the house that reminded me it was Christmas. I have started a new tradition of using the month of December to give to charities that I like. This year I gave to a charity called the Dave Thomas foundation for adoptions among others This is another way to make Christmas happen. I hope next year you gather with others in some church of your choosing to. “ make Christmas happen” in your heart. It is a beautiful contagion! Now I am 83 and I still feel this way. God bless you and Merry Christmas!
Your poor mom and dad having four children die in child birth. I’m 9th of 10; 8 boys, 2 girls. Lots of first and second cousins also. Over 30 nephews and nieces. I was similar in terms of Democrat younger in opposition to Vietnam. Moved Libertarian as part of protest to Banker Bailouts. MAGA made Trump and Musk. Merry Christmas, Richard.
I think many of us went very left because of Nam. I was just a kid, but very political. My instinct (and having a small business) made me Libertarian , and a fiscal Conservative. We find each other through wonderful communicators like Sasha!
Even George McGovern saw the light after he started a small business.
Two books you might find helpful: "Mere Christianity", by C. S. Lewis, and "Evidence That Demands a Verdict", by Josh McDowell.
Merry Christmas!
I have had other people recommend Lewis and it is on my list.
A good, thoughtful read. Written during WWII in England. Lewis is always worth reading. Enjoy!!
Even British Biologist Richard Dawkins -- an outspoken smart-set atheist for decades -- took an honest look at the fact that Britain may well dissolve under this WOKE rot.....and is changing his mind and habits.
Try finding a local congregation to just at least plug into now and then. It is good for the soul. My husband and I go - pretty much just for Christmas, but used to be more involved. It does one good to be w/ others to celebrate the joys of life and be their s support in times of sorrow.
I will add a favourite Christmas carol of mine, which is hauntingly beautiful:
"Gabriel's Message" (Cambridge Choir And Orchestra Of Clare College)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqT9BbiwFa0
Thank you for this ancient hymn. This is the only sort of music we listen to on Christmas Day. Sacred hymns. God is good, all the time. And King Jesus is returning soon to redeem His people.
Christmas blessings to you and yours, Tom.
Beautiful. Thank you
Wow.
My daughter sang this annually with her Cathedral choir as she was growing up. It never leaves me.
Merry Christmas everyone 🎄
Glory to God in the highest 🎄
amen