Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men

Merry Christmas! Whether you're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist, Mormon...well, you get the point...all dogmatic and political (!) aspirations of "My God it better than YOUR God!" set aside, I believe this is at its core the season of peace, light, and love.

As we pray, meditate, or otherwise choose our own personal path to reach spiritual enlightenment and be closer to God, let's remember how busy He is. Are our concerns and prayers helping others? Or only ourselves? C'mon, admit it -- a lot of us have done it: we've prayed passionately for that light to stay green just a few seconds longer, that big promotion at work to go through, that cop to not notice the flashing red 86MPH on his radar gun as we zoom past his cruiser parked in the bushes on the side of the road or that hangover to pass quietly so we can go on to live another day. But considering everything that's going on in our world today, I for one am going to hope and pray that peace and love prevail, and that it start with me. This is hardly a fresh new approach I conjured up on my own. Throughout human history, certainly the past hundred or so years, prayers for peace haven't really worked that well, but nevertheless, being the idealist and pacifist I am I'm still going to give it my best shot.

A lot of people ask each other and those they contend are living a sinful life "What would Jesus do?". It's my belief that if Jesus were here today he'd spend a lot less time (read: NONE) rallying his followers to fight and bicker about the syntax of how everyone should greet each other on the street or as they enter their local Wal*Mart in His name and a lot more time talking about WHY He was here in the first place. Hint: it wasn't to blow holes through each other because they're trying to blow holes through us while cheering on 24 hour cable news stations in God's name to win one for "...His side", asking God to bless us, but certainly not them. Does anyone actually believe Jesus would be standing there firing a machine gun at people he wants to kill because he was right and they were wrong and he's going to prove it once and for all? I'm no biblical scholar, but I haven't for the life of me been able to find such blatant violence in the Good Book (well, New Testament that is), regardless of how much I want to read between the lines and twist the truth to prove a point. Instead, it seems pretty clear to me -- his non-violent life and voluntary death here were written down for all of us to learn from, the story of which told generation after generation as an example for us of how we should love and serve each other, not a reason to stamp our collective feet and shout angrily in patriotic, religious, political or social infighting with fists in the air faining outrage that someone didn't verbally greet me or wish me health and happiness according to the specific appropriate religious protocol of my own personal beliefs. In fact, I highly doubt Jesus cared a whole lot about religion, anyhow...but that's a whole other blog entry for another day.

Not a prayer in the traditional dogmatic sense of the word, but in my mind and heart Lennon's famous song has never rung truer or was needed more profoundly than now, 26 years to the day after his violent murder.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one