The Unclad Soul

And in this season we call Christmas and Holidays, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, Germany’s Saint Nicholas’ Day, and the Philippines’ Giant Lantern Festival, Columbia’s Day of Little Candles, and Toronto’s Cavalcade of Lights, France’s Joyeux Noël, and Russia’s Grandfather Frost, let us find unity, cooperation, friendship. Let us revel in the pretty lights and the decorated trees, the wintry days and the cozy nights, the happy faces and the party fun. Let us feel the grief of the losses of others, the struggling families in an unbalanced economy, the addicted caught in some endless torment, the shamed haunted by a long-ago abuse, the ill unable to enter into the many festivities, the lonely shut off from the busy happy crowds, the prisoners locked in their regrets and dishonor, the mentally infirm whose minds no longer work and whose memories have lost their power. It is a season of birth, of lights, of glory. It is a time to remember the...

Here in this happy season of enraged shoppers and rude store clerks and Target’s phenomenal credit card security system, there is the real spirit of Christmas. It goes something like this. Work with other nations? Why do we need them? We have no need of them. They’re all primitive countries with terrorists and taxes and people of other colors and strange cultures who don’t even observe Christmas. Who can understand a thing they say anyway. Other countries are useless. God bless America. Obamacare? Good Lord no. We don’t need that. If people are stupid enough to get sick then let them figure out how to get well on their own. I don’t want my tax dollars helping other people. The Bible says help yourself, or something like that. Stop war. Are you kidding? Wars are great. Some of the best movies ever made in this country are war movies. John Wayne is still a hero here. Did you not ever see “The Longest Day” for God’s sake? And besides, who gives a flip about the Germans, ...