Claims And Issues

IT'S CHRISTMAS! MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(Photo by Dennis Wall)

He is come!

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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!

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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).

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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)!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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CHRISTMAS IS STRONGER THAN DeJOY.

But why should it have to be?

Liberate the United States Postal Service!

Bring Them Home By Christmas!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

VALUE WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY.

The government of Texas has been sending people North where they will be cared for.  The latest shipment was sent by bus to the Vice President's residence in Washington, D.C. in the piercing cold on Christmas Eve.

The reported numbers of people ranged between 110 and 120 or so.  These were all people from warmer climes, of course, likely including Colombia, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Mexico according to reports.   While the reports of their numbers varied, the reporters all agreed on this:  Many if not most of these people were not clad for the cold but for warmer climes.  Their T-shirts and short pants and the thin blankets for the children did not stand a chance in the freezing wind.

Reporters all agreed on this as well:  A local area church stepped up to welcome the arrivals, offer shelter and donate warm clothing.  And food.  Apparently the Texas government's cruelty knows no end, for they not only sent these people into the Northern freeze but they sent them without food or at least enough food for the trip.

It is important to recall that the Good Book recorded that you could tell the early Christians by doing this:   "See how they love one another."  It did not say, 'Hear how they say they love one another.'

In this reporting from Christmas Eve, it is clear that the residents of Washington, D.C. who fed and clothed and sheltered these people were ones of whom it would have been said, "See how they love one another."

P.S.

The bus company that chartered the torture of these people runs with a license for which it must apply to the Federal Government.  Perhaps human trafficking is something that the relevant agency might look into concerning this company which operates only because it has a license from us, the federal government.  Come to think of it, recent reports of airplanes chartered at the expense of the people of Florida to take people from Texas up North, bears looking into as well.  That airplane charter company cannot fly without the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration or perhaps other agencies to approve their applications for a license to run their businesses to include things like tearing people away from one place and transporting them to another place.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

A STORY FOR CHRISTMAS, THIS CHRISTMAS EVE.

 

Christmas 2022 (Image by Dennis J. Wall)

This is a Christmas story that came about this way.  There is nothing spectacular about it.  But it does involve miracles. 

This story began when my doctor gave me a prescription for a blood test.  I went to a lab which shall remain nameless.  Quest.

My appointment was just after 6:30 in the morning.  On a Friday in December.  It was cold outside.

Inside it was even more difficult.  I brought my printed EMail with my QR Code.  I showed it to the machine which is the only way to sign in for your appointment at the lab in December, 2022, which is true I think of every day and not just when your appointment is close to 6:30 in the morning.

The machine did not take it.  It rejected me and my appointment.  Three times.

A young woman who had just signed in for her own appointment asked me if I was having trouble signing in.  That was a smart question to ask.  If she had asked me, a  man who has lived through many things across many years, if I needed her help I might have done the masculine thing and gruffly barked a "No, thanks."

As it was, she may have had some experience with old cranks in her life, perhaps a grandpa or two.  She asked me if I was having trouble.  I was able to reply to that question without being defensive, but I would not contradict anyone who heard my voice dripping with frustration at that point, "Yes, I am."

She tried herself.  Twice.  (By the way, it has since occurred to me that she was there for a lab test herself.  She did not just show up at the lab that morning.  She had a prescription from her doctor for some kind of test herself.)

Then an employee appeared, ready to usher in the next appointment.  She noticed the young woman trying to check me in and asked if she could help.  The first young woman replied to the second young woman with a short narrative of what had happened.  The employee did a brilliant workaround and when I did not even notice it, she signed me in as a walk-in appointment on a not-very-busy morning or hour of the day.

I got my blood test.  It was all over before 7:00 A.M.  The results have already been delivered to my doctor.  My appointment was successful, through no fault of my own.  But that is not the reason I am writing this story.

The first young woman has red hair and a fair complexion.  The second young woman has black hair and a dark complexion; I guessed that she or her family came to this country from India at some point.  That is what I think of, when I think of American exceptionalism:  Everyone is welcome here.  Everyone belongs.  Here there are no artificial differences built around obstacles of the mind like gender or youth.  Not here, not in the United States of America we truly live in.

That may not strike you as a Christmas story, but it is a miracle to me and to me, Christmas is a miracle.  Besides, the things I have told you happened at Christmastime.

Think of this as well.  This may be more of a story we would expect for Christmas, a story with the flavor of Christmas in it.  The first young woman did not have to say or do anything.  But she saw another person in trouble and she offered to help.  (It so happened that this time I was the other person in trouble who could use some help.)  She stared down any risk of rejection she may have felt.  She reached out.  And she reached out in a way that shows she knows very well how to deal with people, especially strangers like I was to her.  As a result, I am eternally grateful.

The second young woman may have offered her help as part of her job, and probably  did.  But there was more in her actions than just her job.  There was the same character at work that is so clearly alive in the first young woman as well.

So there you have it, a Christmas story on Christmas Eve.  But this story is not unique to one day a year at 6:30 A.M. on a Friday morning in December at a lab.  This is a Christmas story that happens every day in every place at all hours.  There are more stories of this kind than there are of the depressing kind, but it seems like depressing stories are mostly what we are told by media and so they are the ones we hear and see most of the time.  But those stories are not the way we really live.

We all have stories for Christmas and not just on Christmas Eve.  Tell your stories.  Even if together we do not drown out the naysayers, we will sweeten and soften the air around us.  Telling our Christmas stories will help to make gentle the life of this world.  So, Merry Christmas to All and, on this Christmas Eve, to All a Good Night!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE ANTIDOTE TO FEAR IS NOT COURAGE. IT IS FAITH.

The antidote to fear is not courage.  It is faith.

I first heard this years ago and it has proven true ever since.  It especially proves to be true right now.

The time we live in is populated by fear.  We are constantly bombarded by media and the people who manipulate them.  Their message is to be afraid, be very afraid, no matter the situation of the moment.  They tell themselves that they, not we, are in charge then.  They recognize that that may be the only way that they can hold our attention.

The time we live in is also populated by faith.  We will not hear much about it if all we listen to are the media and the manipulators.  "See how they love one another" is an observed fact.  The observers of that fact absolutely did not say, 'Hear how they say they love one another.'  No, the observation was a statement of this simple fact:  "See how they love one another."

At this Holy Holiday time for us all, let's remember that fear does not come from the Divine, we do.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

ON CHRISTMAS AND TAKING THE LONG WAY HOME.

Feeling a bit depressed over the end of Christmas?  Me too.  It's natural but not forever.

          Christmas brought out a lot of the worst in people, after all.  Many people were concerned exclusively with their own small piece of the planet.  Reportedly, people kept their seats on public buses despite the fact that pregnant women and older riders were standing.  Other reports told of outright cruelty in a time of undeniable want and incontestable need.  Many people walked right past other people, homeless, starving, and unwashed in the streets, on the sidewalks, and in the train stations so often that it wasn't even news.        

          Christmas also brought out the best in people.  Kindness was everywhere and patience was abundant.   Then the decorations came down.  The lights were turned off and put away until next year.  Plants that were decorations or gifts were dug into the yard, the lucky ones that did not find their way into a garbage can.

          But Christmas itself was not put away until next year.  The ways of living that so many people joyfully experienced in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas need not vanish with the decorations, the lights, and the plants.   Acting with kindness independent of someone "earning" our kindness, and holding back in patience despite a provocation that we would have once convinced ourselves called for "letting someone have it" because they "deserved" it, or because we were "sharing our feelings" and so we felt we had a license to unload on the other, all good things do not have to come to an end on December 26th.  They do not end with Christmas Day.

          Here's to a Happy New Year this year, all year through!  Here's to a Happy New Year with Christmas every month of the coming year!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

SMALL IS THE POWER OF CHRISTMAS

God came to the world small.  He came in a big way.  The Christ Child was small but the observation has been made about that Child, which is much the same observation that has been made about many a person, thing, or event that at first seems small in our eyes, that He was  mighty.

          We are at our best when we recognize the value of small.  Children, puppies, kittens, a gentle prayer, a budding leaf, a rose.  You think of some small things yourself, and add them to the list.  We all know the value of small even if we sometimes have to stop to think about it.

          That is the power of Christmas.  Small, like a newborn child.  More powerful than all the drones that ever flew, all the border guards that ever rode horseback, all the social media that was ever posted.

          Small is good.  Small is the power of Christmas.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

YOU CANNOT BUY CHRISTMAS

Christmas cannot be earned and it cannot be bought.

          Christmas is a gift.  Gifts are given by those that give gifts.  The giver of a gift decides when, and how, and whether they give a gift, not the receiver of the gift.

          A gift is freely given, like Christmas itself.  Otherwise it is not a gift, it is a transaction.  To say again, Christmas cannot be bought.  It is not in the retail inventory.  It is not brought out to a shelf and sold in a shiny box on the 25th of December.

          Nor is Christmas a lay-away plan, where little by little a person puts down money on a product until eventually the purchase price is paid.  Christmas is available to all, without price, at all times.  Christmas is open to everyone to join in, even if a person chooses not to participate until the 24th of December, let's say.  Last-minute joy is still joy. 

          To say it another way, Christmas does not have a two-minute warning.  The Christ child comes whenever the Spirit wills and not just on the 25th of December.  Likewise, the gift of you is welcome any time.

          As Linus said, that is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

 Merry Christmas!

            

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

COMPASSION BROUGHT THE FIRST CHRISTMAS.

And every Christmas since.

Compassion stirred the dark night into the shining Christmas star that lit the way of shepherds and kings.

          Compassion brought the first Christmas.  Christians believe that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son on Christmas.  We can all believe, and hope that we too can show empathy and compassion, even if the most we can manage is a small part of the word.  For our part, all we have to do, each of us, is be compassionate toward others in our lives.

          The people we meet each day, the others in our lives, are only a small sliver of the unfinished work that is the world's population.  The job we face is not too hard for us to do.  Especially now, when we have so many examples of how compassion is worked out in every age since that first Christmas.

          By showing empathy with others, particularly when we show our compassion to others from whom we do not expect anything in return, we too stir the dark night into the shining Christmas star, a light that can light the ways of the world.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

GIVING FOR CHRISTMAS

We have already begun to celebrate Christmas.  The stores were open for buying around Halloween.  Every year they give us more and more days to buy so that we can give.  And we accommodate.

          Four days from today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  But as I said, we have already begun to celebrate Christmas.  When Christ was born, God came to earth and gave His only Son to all humanity forever more:  That belief is at the center of Christianity.  That belief should take a central place in our celebration of Christmas, and not for Christians alone should this be central.

          The belief that God gave us all a gift is, again as I already said, central.  Giving to others puts the focus on others, not on our shopping lists.

          Buying gifts has been twisted into a morphed and morbid making of a buck.  It has become about us rather than about others, about how seemingly generous we are, and about what fine gifts we have on our list of purchases rather than about the people who will receive our gifts.

          Buying gifts is also not the only way to give a gift.  As people who have received gifts, we share the experience of receiving gifts which do not come with a price tag:  a child's embrace freely given and unearned, a mother's or father's compassionate understanding of our failings, a husband or a wife or anyone else cutting our meat at dinner time when we cannot and so making it possible for us to eat.

          We have been celebrating Christmas for the merchants for months.  We can show them one better.  We can celebrate Christmas today, and every day, all the days of the year.  Four days from now we honor the Birth of Christ, the greatest gift, a gift of love itself.  We can share that gift today, and every day, all the days of the year.

          Merry Christmas!

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2021 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.