welcome!

I am Mike Noakes.
That is was my pipe.
This is my blog.
Welcome.

(about me)

(thoughts)

"Before the beautiful-no, not really before but within the beautiful-the whole person quivers. He not only 'finds' the beautiful moving; rather, he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it."
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- Flannery o'Connor

"Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world. It is time, in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds, stewards of the new day that is dawning."
- NT Wright

"When we think our brother or sister has sinned against us, such an affront is not just against us but against the whole community. A community established as peaceful cannot afford to let us relish our sense of being wronged without exposing that wrong in the hopes of reconciliation."
- Stan Hauerwas

"Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments."
- Thomas Merton

"All the believers were of one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possesions was their own, but they shared everything that they had."
- Acts of the Apostles

"For evil men account those things alone evil which do not make men evil; neither do they blush to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if it were man's greatest good to have everything good but himself."
- St. Augustine

(reading)

The Eucharist of the Early Christians

The Collected Short Stories, Flannery o'Connor

The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy

(have read)

Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II

God is Near Us, Pope Benedict XVI

Heretics/Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton

Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barret Browning

(theology thinkers)

(spirituality)

(site feed)

(good books)

Monday, November 27, 2006

Putting the "Mass" back in Christmas and other such things

Ok, I know I'm far behind on this "War '06," or as others call it, The War on Christmas, but I have an excellent excuse: poverty. I have limited access to a computer for some time now and I haven't had time to keep up with my blog. I'm sure that you all haven't noticed... but, hey, it's all good :P

Anyways, I figure if Bush gets to have his silly war we get to have one too, damnit! For too long we have let Caesar have his way with our sacred feasts. I can't even remember a time when someone mentioned "Christmas" without Santa, snow, candy canes, gifts, food, family, "little baby Jeezus" in the next breath. It's sickening, really.

As self-appointed head of the Idaho division of the Anti-Christmas Corps, I hereby propose a plan of action. As people in America having citizenship in a Higher Government and belonging to a different society, we will not give in to the demands of traditional American consumerism. Rather, we will celebrate in frugality and worship in solemnity.

Does this mean we aren't going to buy gifts, decorations, cards, or christmas trees? No. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a national holiday. In fact, I encourage all of you to spend time with friends and family this season. This is a good thing. God doesn't hate the blue spruce with some electric lights on it anymore than he does the turkey with stuffing in it we all ate last month, regardless of the sketchy origins of both feasts.

What God does hate is idolatry. When Jesus is mentioned in a sermon being compared to Santa (gifting us with the riches of his glory, assisted by little guardian angel-elves, of course) and a pagan festival is more noticeable than one of the highest feasts on the christian calendar, then we have a bit of a problem.

Anyways, I wanted to throw in a bit of my own thoughts on this war. I'll be back later with more, for sure.

posted by -mike- at 7:25 PM

 

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