Of course my kids know many Christians celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus. Even though the birth took place in the Spring in all likelihood , and even though the Christmas we know as Christmas has more ties to the pagan Solstice celebrations. Yes, even though we know these things, Christmas is celebrated as the birthday of the son of God. Okay, that’s all well and good. But we are not Christians. I don’t think my mother in law gets this. We celebrate Christmas but we’re not Christians. We celebrate the spirit of giving, a time of gratitude and the sharing of the bounty we’ve been fortunate enough to receive. We do the tree and the stockings and the lights, but for different reasons than most people. And I think that’s okay. I mean, what do the tree and stockings and lights have to do with Jesus anyway? But I digress...
My thoughts about religion culminated in my taking the quiz again at Beliefnet.com. Apparently we’re most like Hindus with strong Buddhist leanings. I knew that. But that still leaves much to interpretation, and then just what do we teach our kids? There are no temples in our neck of the woods, but we’re not really temple people anyway. So we have to make our decisions about our beliefs and then teach those to our kids in such a way that they still feel free to seek and learn and make their own decisions about their beliefs. Whew. That’s a tall order!
I think we’ll take what Ghandi said. When boarding a train to leave India at one point, a follower asked if he had anything to tell his people, a message perhaps to take back to them. He said “my life is my message”. And that’s the way it should be; what we do, how we live will be a much more powerful teacher to our children; they will learn of humanity, generosity, love, spirituality by watching us rather than listening to us. Our words can be beautiful, awe inspiring things but our hands and our hearts will speak the truth.
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