it’s christmas, c’est noel. noel. it’s also yule, mithras, chanukah, kwanza or festivus.
whatever you’re celebrating at this time of year, all the best to you, may you find comfort and happiness with friends and family and if you’re travelling get to and from safely.
now that i’ve got that out of the way i wanted to talk about respect. not everyone believes the same things and that’s what makes humanity interesting or it’s what should make it interesting. because we have differing opinions doesn’t automatically give you the right to belittle me or my beliefs. i was born and raised in methodist/catholic household and at one point considered joining the priesthood, not necessarily seriously, but i did consider it. i started having organisational issues with religion and started asking difficult questions, which in most cases still haven’t been resolved. you could say in my late teens i took my comparative religions studies and found they all had the same fundamental problem – the karma, was sound, but soon or later, the dogma over powered it.
i worship at UU congregation in nashville and last night we had our christmas celebration, just as we had our yule celebration last sunday, because the basic tenet of our faith is open and accepting of all beliefs. so it really chapped my ass to have a guest disrespect our minister and community last night. maybe my christian upbringing was different, but i believe the message we were given was to ‘love one another as i have loved you’ and i think part of that love is to be respectful.
i believe we assign our human foibles to our god, but it would do us good to remember that we’re made in the creator’s image not the other way around. i believe in a compassionate, understanding, forgiving god, free of hate, with a sense of humour, if that’s not your belief, i thank you to at least respect mine.
