By admin, on January 8th, 2012%
Christmas Eve 2011
This month, a woman walked into an American Kmart store, asked the clerk to see a list of the store layaways and paid off several that were for children’s toys and clothes. She did so without getting any credit and left the store quietly. But her act started a chain reaction, and across the country, others began doing the same, making sure struggling families were able to puts toys under the tree for Christmas. In a year in which we began, around the world, to consider what it means to live in a moral society, what our obligations are to one another and how we might correct the stark social inequalities that we have allowed to develop, it was a story of human goodness and charity – not for a name on a building, or media fame. Just because it felt right and good and worthy of the season. Something to restore a little faith.
By admin, on January 26th, 2011%
A sermon from Christmas Eve
In 1834, Charles Dickens was spending most of his time giving lectures
on the importance of education to fight poverty and using his writer’s
influence to raise money for schools for poor children. As Christmas
approached, he had an idea for a story with a colourful protagonist that
could deliver Dickens’s message of other-centredness and social justice.
Mr. Dickens had little money, but he chose to pay for the publication
himself to maintain control over it. No expense was spared: the pictures
were hand-coloured etchings, the cover gold-embossed. And he kept the
price low so that everyone, rich and poor, might be able to buy it and
hear its message. That story, of course, was A Christmas Carol. And
that colourful character was Scrooge, who has been teaching us about
Christmas spirit in his reluctant, grumpy way for more than 150 years.
Continue reading Christmas Eve 2010
Comments are closed 
