Happy Christmas...War is Over...(if you want it, and Jesus does, so why don't you?)
Tonight is Christmas Eve. I just got a phone call from my mother who told me her pastor had quoted my previous Christmas editorial about the sinister side of using the seasonal greeting to identify those who aren't "like minded" Christian Conservatives.
It warmed my heart. Earlier, while listening to Air America, they were playing the John Lennon song Happy Xmas, War is Over and I got very nostalgic for the ghosts of Christmas past. This was a Christmas song I listened to over and over again every year when I was in high school. And I was still in high school when John Lennon was shot just 17 days before Christmas. They played that song an awful lot that year.
How many times have you heard it this year? Or last year? Or since 2003? I honestly don't think I can remember hearing it once besides last night on Air America.
Dig it out of your record collections, call into radio stations and request it. This Christmas song by one of the greatest peace activists to come out of popular culture is more important this year than ever...especially since this is the year, at midnight on December 31st, that all of the FBI documents on John Lennon will be declassified.
And the message of that song is as true now as it was in Viet Nam...the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the War on Terror, the War on Christmas, the War on Liberalism, the War on everything that isn't strongly in favor of George Bush being a war president won't be over if we don't want it, and if we don't say we want it as loudly as we can.
There is often an argument between Christians which holiday is more important, Easter or Christmas. Easter couldn't have happened without the birth of Christ, but the birth of Christ has no meaning without Easter.
I had a look at my editorial from last Easter, and am reprinting it here...updated for the holiday. Think of it as my Christmas card to you.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS from the HEART OF ARCHIE
If I were to meet Judge Roy Moore, who said his Christianity had moved him to donate a graven stone image of the Ten Commandments to the foyer of the Alabama Courthouse in which he was the sitting Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court...I'd ask him why he didn't instead donate a stone memorial to the commandment Jesus gave, just before he was taken by the Romans?
Jesus told his disciples, "I have a new commandment for you...that you should love one another."
Wouldn't that be a world changing thing to have inscribed above every courthouse in the nation? Or, for that matter, above the front doors of every school, church, and town hall in the land? Emblazened on every drinking fountain, every fountain pen, every bumpersticker, on every lapel pin, every coin, every dollar bill, and every prison gate in America?
"I command you to love one another" --signed, Jesus.
God gave Moses Ten Commandments. Jesus gave us one.
And so, I'm trying to fulfill that commandment.
At least through Christmas.
George Bush, I love you. John Ashcroft, I love you. Judge Roy Moore, I love you. Donald Rumsfeld, I love you. Dick Cheney, I love you. Zacharias Moussaui, I love you. Mohammad Atta, I love you. Osama bin Laden, I love you. Saddam Hussein, I love you.
And I love each of you, too.
Merry Christmas, and God bless us--everyone.
It warmed my heart. Earlier, while listening to Air America, they were playing the John Lennon song Happy Xmas, War is Over and I got very nostalgic for the ghosts of Christmas past. This was a Christmas song I listened to over and over again every year when I was in high school. And I was still in high school when John Lennon was shot just 17 days before Christmas. They played that song an awful lot that year.
How many times have you heard it this year? Or last year? Or since 2003? I honestly don't think I can remember hearing it once besides last night on Air America.
Dig it out of your record collections, call into radio stations and request it. This Christmas song by one of the greatest peace activists to come out of popular culture is more important this year than ever...especially since this is the year, at midnight on December 31st, that all of the FBI documents on John Lennon will be declassified.
And the message of that song is as true now as it was in Viet Nam...the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the War on Terror, the War on Christmas, the War on Liberalism, the War on everything that isn't strongly in favor of George Bush being a war president won't be over if we don't want it, and if we don't say we want it as loudly as we can.
There is often an argument between Christians which holiday is more important, Easter or Christmas. Easter couldn't have happened without the birth of Christ, but the birth of Christ has no meaning without Easter.
I had a look at my editorial from last Easter, and am reprinting it here...updated for the holiday. Think of it as my Christmas card to you.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS from the HEART OF ARCHIE
If I were to meet Judge Roy Moore, who said his Christianity had moved him to donate a graven stone image of the Ten Commandments to the foyer of the Alabama Courthouse in which he was the sitting Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court...I'd ask him why he didn't instead donate a stone memorial to the commandment Jesus gave, just before he was taken by the Romans?
Jesus told his disciples, "I have a new commandment for you...that you should love one another."
Wouldn't that be a world changing thing to have inscribed above every courthouse in the nation? Or, for that matter, above the front doors of every school, church, and town hall in the land? Emblazened on every drinking fountain, every fountain pen, every bumpersticker, on every lapel pin, every coin, every dollar bill, and every prison gate in America?
"I command you to love one another" --signed, Jesus.
God gave Moses Ten Commandments. Jesus gave us one.
And so, I'm trying to fulfill that commandment.
At least through Christmas.
George Bush, I love you. John Ashcroft, I love you. Judge Roy Moore, I love you. Donald Rumsfeld, I love you. Dick Cheney, I love you. Zacharias Moussaui, I love you. Mohammad Atta, I love you. Osama bin Laden, I love you. Saddam Hussein, I love you.
And I love each of you, too.
Merry Christmas, and God bless us--everyone.
posted by Archie Levine at 10:58 AM
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