Claims And Issues

IT'S CHRISTMAS! MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

He is come!

GO FORWARD

MERRY CHRISTMAS! IT'S ...

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

Christmas!

GO FORWARD

NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH IS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

And you shall go to Bethlehem and there you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger ....

A Child is born to us, a Savior is given to us!  He and we are almost there!  Merry Christmas Eve!

GO FORWARD

CHRISTMAS A DAY AWAY!

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

It's Christmas Eve Day.  Christmas is a day away.  I can't wait (although I'm old enough to know I have to).

GO FORWARD

CHRISTMAS TWO DAYS AWAY!

(Photograph by Dennis Wall)

Christmas is two days away.  Rise up!  Joy is on the way (actually, it's always been here)!

GO FORWARD

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS.

Christmas blessings are for everyone.  Blessings don't disappear or dwindle like water poured from a bottle.  With blessings, it's always a full bottle.

Especially but not just at Christmas. 

Do not pay attention to people who are opposed to blessings.  They did not visit the Babe in the crib either.

GO FORWARD

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

Christmas teaches an important lesson:  Home is anywhere you make it and the Holy Days are anywhere you make them.

GO FORWARD

A ZOOM CHRISTMAS.

Like many other people, polio survivors weaken quickly.  Post-Polio Syndrome is often confused with such conditions as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, and Muscular Sclerosis but all these share in common that, among other things, they make it difficult to meet in person.

Thanks to Zoom and its morally equivalent cousins, such as Skype and Cisco Webex to name two with free versions,  everyone can support anyone else meeting virtually now.  At Christmas and All Year Through.

GO FORWARD

PEOPLE WHO HAVE DISABILITIES ARE: PEOPLE.WITH.A. DISABILITY.

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

It is certainly worth repeating, whether or not the world knows it yet.

Christmas does not know disabilities.  Everyone is equal to everyone else at Christmas, disabled or abled.  This is when we can all bring joy to other people, and to ourselves in the process:   at Christmas and all year through.

Christmas knows no disabilities, nothing that separates one person from any other person.   We should not know disabilities in that sense, either.

GO FORWARD

CHRISTMAS IS STRONGER THAN DeJOY.

But why should it have to be?

Liberate the United States Postal Service!

Bring Them Home By Christmas!

GO FORWARD

BETTER THE WHITE DOG AT CHRISTMAS.

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

A white dog at Christmas in Florida.  White snow on the ground.  I've lived with both.  For me in Florida, better the white dog at Christmas.

GO FORWARD

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE AND CHRISTMAS.

C-47's drop supplies over Bastogne the day after Christmas in 1944.  (Wikipedia)

The Battle of the Bulge began seventy-nine years ago, on December 16, 1944.  Since that time, many cold winters and joy-filled Christmases have come and gone.

The liberation of Bastogne the day after Christmas has not yet been forgotten, though.

Neither has the Birth of the Child in Bethlehem.

GO FORWARD

CHRISTMAS DOES NOT KNOW DISABILITIES.

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

Many of our people go through life with a disability of one kind or another.  Sometimes other people who do not share those particular disabilities do not see them.  Sometimes they do.

Christmas does not know disabilities.  Everyone is equal to everyone else at Christmas, disabled or abled.  This is when we can all bring joy to other people, and to ourselves in the process:   at Christmas and all year through.

Christmas knows no disabilities, nothing that separates one person from any other person.   We should not know disabilities in that sense, either.

GO FORWARD

A MAN CALLED JOHN.

A man called John inspired the people.  He spoke calmly and directly.  The people were not used to that, especially the direct speech right to the point.  John calmly told the people what was coming.  He told them their part was to prepare and to live.

He is an inspiration.

GO FORWARD

WHEN THE PHONE RINGS, ANSWER IF IT'S CHRISTMAS CALLING.

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

Do you remember when the phone rang, your training was to answer it?

Now with the advent of robocalling for money, the training now is not to answer it.  Probably good training to free yourself from the hucksters that want to take your money, but not such good training if the call is for something good.

If it's Christmas calling, answer it!

GO FORWARD

CAN YOU FEEL IT? CHRISTMAS IS ON ITS WAY!

Don't worry.  You haven't missed the Day.  The date is two weeks away.

And don't worry about the Season either.  You haven't missed it.  You're part of it; without you there isn't a Season even if there is a Day.

GO FORWARD

TIME FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT.

Fifteen days before Christmas.  You don't have to be a small child to feel the excitement.

GO FORWARD

THE BEST BACKUP EVER IS THE BABE IN BETHLEHEM.

(Photo by Adobe)

Ever lost documents or data before you got a chance to back them up?

The baby born in Bethlehem is the best backup we could ever have. 

GO FORWARD

CHANGE WILL MOST CERTAINLY COME. THIS CHRISTMAS, REMEMBER THE CHILD.

The world remembers the birth of a child whose mother and father sheltered him from bitter cold weather in the company of animals.

The world will not remember much about the money that gun merchants made in profits before and after each massacre.

But you and I will realize that the massacres would not have been as big, that the deaths would not have been as many, and that the guns would not have been as easy to get, if the gun merchants and their friends had not insisted on getting their way.

Change will come.  Change will most certainly come.  Remember that Child?

GO FORWARD

THE CHILD BORN IN BETHLEHEM CAME TO SAVE US ALL.

From Las Vegas, Nevada to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in Florida, and to Sandy Hook, Massachusetts and Uvalde, Texas, and from Charleston, South Carolina to Buffalo, New York.

Students in college and in high school, toddlers in elementary school, people in church, shoppers at a grocery store.

White people, Black people, American citizens, immigrants without papers.

The Child in the stable came for the sake of everyone.  This year let's try to remember that each time we are in a place where others also are, and each time we are alone. 

The Child born in Bethlehem sheltering from the piercing cold with animals came into the world to save us all.

GO FORWARD

NEVADA, CHARLESTON, BUFFALO, UVALDE ... AND BETHLEHEM.

As I write this article, another mass killing has been reported.  This time, it's on the campus of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.  I didn't get the chance earlier today to write my daily article about Christmas for this blog.  I am making the time now for sure.

The road to Nevada is not that different from the road that led from the stable in Bethlehem.  Or from the road that led to Charleston, South Carolina.  Or Buffalo, New York.  Or Uvalde, Texas.  Or any one of dozens of other places where roads led to the same terrible end.

Violence in this country can be sudden.  When you least expect it.  Violence in this country is also increasingly deadly.  Whether we like it or not, if we have eyes to see with and ears to hear with, we know that we live in a place where seemingly random killing happens so often that many of us have become numb to it all.  Beyond the randomness of this death-making performance in which we are made to be unwilling participants, murders now become massacres.

It does not change things to the good to assign blame to the people who have caused this performance or who profit by it, or to hate the ones who enabled and perpetrated the performance.  It does not change things any more for the better, than it would to single out the people who made the world such that a young woman was forced to give birth in a place where they keep animals.

Whatever else they do, these events in Nevada and South Carolina and Buffalo and Texas and every other place that they happen, show us that we ought to be grateful and kind and loving with those who are in our lives right now.  Because they may not be there tomorrow.  It is above all perhaps  a good and sufficient reason to rejoice that they were here and to give thanks that, for most of us, they still are here.

GO FORWARD AT CHRISTMASTIME

AZALEAS IN BLOOM IN DECEMBER, CHRISTMASTIME IN 2023!

Azaleas in Bloom in December.  (Photo by Dennis Wall)

GO FORWARD

I DON'T KNOW. MAYBE THE ANSWER IS IN A MANGER ....

Why are children made to suffer?

I don't know.

Why is there evil in the world?

I don't know.

The answer lies in a manger in the piercing cold in a place where they keep animals.  As Linus said, that's what Christmas is all about.

GO FORWARD

CAN THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT BE WARM? ABSOLUTELY.

There is a prayer for Christmastime that repeats a line something like, "in the piercing cold."

Can it be Christmastime without being cold?  Sure it can.  It's what's inside you that counts, not what's outside.

GO FORWARD

SHARING OUR CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS.

We have a couple of Nativity sets.  (Sometimes they are called creches.)  One is inside under our Christmas tree.  The other is outside.

We put the Baby Jesus out when He comes on Christmas.  That's what Christmas is all about, as Linus said.

Please share your Christmas traditions.  The Comments below are waiting any time you want to share.  Or you can share your Christmas traditions in your live chats with live people this Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

GO FORWARD