Only 52 shopping days before Christmas...including Sundays now, of course.
The late Pat Soloman, a newspaper columnist friend, wrote that it seemed to him that the word "Christmas" had become synonymous with shopping and our most sacred Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus had been reduced to "Tis the season to be jolly."
I've never forgotten his line: "Too many of us think that Christmas Spirit is a product sold by the LCBO."
"In our rush to please everyone, we are losing our heritage," he contended. "I know that Canada is not a 100 per cent Christian nation, but on other festive occasions like the Feast of Eid or Ramaddam or Channakuh or Roshashanna, no one tries to water down the tradition. I am sure that no religion in the world objects to the simple message of Christmas -- 'Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards men'."
And I completely agreed with Pat on that. (We often exchanged notes on what each other had written.)
Almost a decade older than me, Pat made no secret that he doubted the Virgin Birth, but did believe a very special prophet was born in Bethlehem at that time and He had a special message for us all. "That message has been confused by theologians over the ages," he said. "The Golden Rule has been turned into 'he who has the gold makes the rules' and 'do unto others before they do it to you'." He simply felt that cynicism should not stop decent people from being decent. "The detraction from the message given so long ago points to a major malaise in our material national thinking."
We also agreed that society was becoming molecular in as much as our current philosophy was one of listening to single purpose viewpoints. Fashion a decade or so ago, as is the case even more so now, dictates that if one molecule in a mass objects to the behavior of any other molecule (or the mass itself), the the objecting molecule is right. That means the mass as a whole is wrong.
I am especially offended, too, by the fringe few who take up causes simply because of some sick self-serving need to be heard. They delight in upsetting tradition and the beliefs of others. In taking away, they contribute nothing in return.
This new law of behavior allows single purpose groups to prevail over established customs without regard for the good of the whole. Kind of like the tail wagging the dog. This establishes the dangerous tyranny of the minority and imprisons the thinking and voice of the majority. How many cases of this happening today can you think of?
Our so-called leaders, in their haste to displease no one, end up pleasing only a few. We have no leader with a genuine opinion; we only have elected mutes who are paranoid about having their say for fear of a tirade of objections from a vocal minority. They exclusively spew scripted party lines. Political oneupmanship is the dominate modus operandi.
For the majority of the country that was founded on Christian faith, we should be celebrating Christmas as the religious festival that it is and not the commercial binge that is taking over this most sacred time of year. Pat Salmon truly had a single purpose cause and it was called "Canada". He wrote always in favor of his adopted country. He demonstrated his love and did not care who knew it. He believed that developed potential in this country is enormous if only the current populace would view the mass and not the molecule.
NOTE FROM DICK: While I allowed Pat's doubt about the Virgin Birth, in my next Wrights Lane post I will attempt to address the subject from an essentially Christian viewpoint.
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