Posted on 12/19/2017 5:46:35 PM PST by Kaslin
A person who gives a gift featuring his or her sacred religious iconography is reaching out, showing kindness and sharing his or her faith with others.
But, as any honest minority will tell you, that singular idea of what America must be like simply is not accurate. This image often lives exclusively in the minds of those intent on viewing the world as a hostile place, filled with bigotry
This reminds me of a woman who illustrates this disconnect perfectly. For a long time, in my early working years, I felt extremely uncomfortable around Christmas time. I was far more liberal then and far more suspicious of Christians around me.
I would walk around listening to Christmas music while attempting to block out all religious connotations. I would drive past Nativity scenes on public property and scowl at their imposition of Christian faith on everybody. I bitterly frowned at the lack of Chanukah-related decorations at the local stores. I felt completely outside of society, looking in from the cold at happy families eating their large Christmas dinners.
An older woman who worked with me then gave everyone a personalized Christmas card each year. The card even had a small, hand-placed candy attached. The first time she gave me a card, I instantly frowned with disapproval, as the cover featured a glittery Nativity scene. I tossed the card aside and shook my head at her utter lack of respect for my religious beliefs.
She did not seem to notice. The following year she did the same, with another new religiously inspired card bearing another carefully placed candy, and a rosy smile as she handed each out.
In secret, I wanted to enjoy her gifts. I would even sneakily eat the candy hoping no one would notice. I instinctively smiled inside only to force a frown on the outside on pure principle. I often convinced myself that even if I wasn’t that offended, other people might be and it was my responsibility to speak up for them.
I felt a social obligation to educate her on the inappropriateness of her actions, while inside I intermittently felt envious of the others who so fully enjoyed them. In my loneliness her act of kindness gave me a moment of comfort. I chose to replace that with resentment.
She was otherwise a lovely woman whom I generally enjoyed, but I viewed her as an object of validation to my belief in a totalitarian and fascistic Christian Right attempting to take over the country. Her sheer audacity in providing me with a clearly religious symbol felt like an intentional assault, and in the third year I anticipated it with hostility.
When she once again presented me a hand-signed card, I stood up and marched to Human Resources, waving it in the air as evidence of being discriminated against. I angrily complained that her intentions did not matter as long as I felt the offense and the act itself made working there feel unsafe. So they spoke to her about the issue.
Although many of the other employees enjoyed her yearly gift and scorned me for complaining, I felt justified in my actions. She never confronted me, but she avoided wishing me a Merry Christmas for the rest of the season. I felt validated. But I also felt profoundly empty.
I watched each of my coworkers laughing and fully enjoying the spirit of the holidays, sharing gifts and treats with one another completely unburdened by self-consciousness. As I sat at my bare desk, the bright colors, glitter, and celebration of all things Christmas taunted me. My lone Chanukah teddy bear did not comfort me.
The last year I worked there, she once again presented everyone with a Christmas card. This time the cover was a Christmas tree with no religious iconography. I was busy when she approached my desk and I remember her pausing, smiling down at me, and saying, “I hope you have a lovely holiday,” before setting my hand-written card on my desk.
I stared at it for a long time before finally reaching for it and opening it. It was a simple message, and she wished me happiness and joy in her own writing inside. As I held the card I felt a tingle of recognition of what she did for each of her coworkers every year when she did not have to. I felt a pang of guilt.
I left for other opportunities, and over the years as my conservative worldview came into focus and the heavy cloaks of victimhood shed to the ground behind me, I often thought of her and her kindness. I have worked with many people who chose to give everyone at the office a personalized gift, which were often religious in nature. Despite HR warnings against religious imagery or politically correct scolding on diversity and religious tolerance, many chose to offer kindness anyway. It took me a long time to recognize that I was choosing to be offended.
That wonderful lady passed away this week, and as I lit my Chanukah candles I thought of her. Despite my cold and bitter temperament, she tried to warm my heart with a small and simple gift every single year she had the opportunity to do so. She provided a moment of joy and happiness to so many people with a small act. I remember her kind face and perfume as she walked by. I remember her soft voice and wide smile. I remember how nice she was to absolutely everyone she encountered.
Curious onlookers often ask me about my religious beliefs, and every year as Chanukah approaches I receive many an enthusiastic inquiry into the precise dates and practices. People always want to make sure they give me a gift at just the right time. They don’t want to miss the holiday and make me feel left out.
Sometimes those Chanukah gifts have images of Jesus on them. Despite what our media presents and my younger self firmly believed, this is not an act of aggression but one of innocent compassion. A person who gives a gift featuring his or her sacred religious iconography is reaching out, showing kindness and sharing his or her faith with others.
These days I find myself loving Christmas and the cheer, colors, sounds, and small acts of kindness surrounding me. People love to make other people smile and they do so with hand-crafted gifts, treats, and homemade goods. They relish in watching the people they engage with daily partake in delicious candy and cookies, and they eagerly post cards they have received all around doorways and on walls.
I still receive Christmas cards with Nativity scenes on them, and they line my desk and my doorframe with pride. I appreciate the gifts others give me now, and I know it is always with the best of intentions at heart.
It is so easy to be offended, so easy to feel hostility and suspicion. Victimhood is attractive because it gives people permission to be judgmental without consequence and feel superior in doing so. It creates a sense of being special, enlightened, and above it all. But this merely traps people in a cycle of bitterness and loneliness as they fight the urge to simply enjoy the holiday season with everyone else. Ironically, the fact that they receive the same gift as everyone else demonstrates their inclusion in the group rather than highlighting their difference.
As a Jew, I can say that I appreciate Christians’ gestures during this time of year. Although it has become more risky over time, I encourage Christians to continue providing them. That kind woman could have ignored me after the first year when I threw her card in the trash in open sight. But she didn’t, and that matters.
Kindness matters. Even when the objects of your kindness reject your efforts, just know that deep down you are touching a part of them that they will hopefully come to appreciate in time. Not everyone will, but just enough of us can be rescued to be worth the effort. Your small act of generosity means more than you know.
I taped a candy cane to my door.
Upside down, oriented as a “J”.
Diversity is king...
Unless the queen is Christian.
Wonderful post Kaslin... what a loving person.
We all killed Him.
However we are free to recieve Him. Also Pilate washed his hands and just wanted him flogged. The Jews, back by the crowd, wanted Him dead. Pilate was already on notice due to Jewish insurrections and said Ok.
Pilate trolled the Jews however by ordering that “Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum”/INRI by placed above His head. Also who cried out for Barabbas? That sure as heck did not make the Roman authorities very happy, but again, Pilate was on notice.
I must have missed the part where he apologized to the kind, sweet Woman who took her time to acknowledge others.
What a putz.
[[Yeah, but Hanukkah was not a serious Jewish holiday until Jews of the West needed something in December to compete with Christmas. Prior to the post WW2 west, Hanukkah was basically unknown.]]
Hanukkah means dedication . You might think it was unknown but Jesus knew about it . It’s actually mentioned in the New Testament .
(John 10:22) And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
(John 10:23) And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
Such an act is one that inseparably mingles humility and grace . . .
Yeah, I pretty much just wish everyone Merry Christmas unless I know the people I’m speaking to to be Jewish or Muslim or they’re otherwise wearing garb or symbols of those religions. Then they get a Happy Holidays or maybe both if I’m not sure. There’s a difference between being anti-PC and being a jerk.
I agree, and do the same. I’ve never had anybody act offended when I’ve said, ‘Merry Christmas’; but I think we should exercise thoughtfulness when we are aware that someone is of another faith.
Like McGavin999, I remember my Jewish friends on the holidays of their faith; and they remember me on those of mine. Everyone appreciates it, and nobody is offended.
This is a picture of what God faces daily — people who trample His grace.
I personally found it easy as an unbeliever to hoot at the commercialization of Christmas, and yet there seemed to be a distinct undertone of something better in it.
Gentile Christians, especially, could stand to brush up on some details of soteriology. Jesus had been saving people well before they understood, on earth, who their Savior was.
God “took a risk” (in scare quotes since He always knows what He is doing) in introducing the Son to the world at all. This detail of salvation could have remained the way it always had been, had God wished it. The revelation of Jesus as a distinct person in history, even at all the risks of it being misunderstood, was important. It made explicit our relationship to the love that always exists in God, which is why it came with another revelation, that of a triune God.
And as for commercialization? I think even most advertisers know when it’s overdone, and refrain at that point. The fault is more that of shallow consumers. Once the divine story really comes home to the heart, one might wish that the marketplace glittered with Christmas regalia all year long.
Any apology is owed not to her, but to God.
[Any apology is owed not to her, but to God.]
And God is patient. Oy vey is He patient.
The line of Jewish traditional religious following that we see today is the legacy of the line that said no to Jesus. We Christians shouldn’t expect it to have a straight story and be ready to say “Aha! the Savior.” We get mad at modern “fake news” because we know so many people swallow it without thinking.
This fellow is doing something dangerous. He’s starting to think. Christ may arrive at the heart well before He arrives at the head.
And well I have been there and done that.
Modern Jewish theology is a difficult thing for Christians to understand. Even I didn’t really understand it. The unity of God is taken as a arithmetic singleness of person too, but people never had the right to make that assertion a priori. The secret things belong unto the Lord God. But among other things it makes the difference between a God who “can love” and a God who “is love.”
Perceived loyalty to God calls, and calls loudly. Even erroneous responses to that should be treated with respect. Conduct far worse than throwing away a card will yet meet with mercy if it is due to “ignorance and unbelief.”
Was he a jerk? If so, humanity itself has been jerks before God.
I have to disagree - I think it was thoughtless. Granted, it seems to have been so in a sort of benign, ‘ditzy’ way, instead of a deliberately arrogant one.
Just like today.
But yet the proof is in the pudding.
I would venture that it looks a lot like Jesus has found him.
Is there aught in his heart that could be moved unto everlasting acceptance by any amount of grace? If so, that grace will be furnished. Along with the trials that are necessary to highlight the need and use of that grace.
Some people just slam the door shut to God permanently, as though it were all about themselves and always would be. Neither God nor the devil will significantly trouble those persons on earth.
[Some people just slam the door shut to God permanently, as though it were all about themselves and always would be.]
Hence the biblical reference to an “unforgivable sin.” To the most holy One on earth, a person choosing to commit this sin will act with unmixed revulsion. We saw an example of this when religious experts were automatically blaming Jesus’ healing miracles on the devil, without any apparent attempt to delve into the question.
If this Jew is wearing a kippah, it is probable that he had a proper Jewish education and therefore will not be vulnerable to the proselytizing patter that Messyonic cult members use to try and convince Jews that J.C. can be part of their life AND they can still be a Jew. The 2 concepts are utterly mutually exclusive. Jews do not have any part of J.C. in their life. It's not part of our religion. Messyonics are a well known CULT, trying to pass themselves off as Jews. In fact, the vast majority of them are non-Jews and their efforts are directed toward trying to convince poorly educated Jews that J.C. is part of Judaism. They use Torah quotes taken out of context, Jewish prayerbooks modified to contain references to the N.T., Hebrew words in regular conversations and other such subterfuge. We had one of them at work who, over and over again, would come and sit at my cafeteria table and then start to spout this stuff, despite being asked to leave. I got him fired for harassing me and others. He certainly brought that on himself.
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