Subj:     a winter's day   
Date:    4/3/02 9:36:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time   
From:   Fhp72551

it's a gray cold day in Louisville, and coming to work this morning as i caught my first glimpse of the sky & trees it had a real late-fall/early winter feel to it, like a day in December rather than April -- especially ironic since yesterday was warm breezes & 76 degrees ....

i got to thinking about the placement of Christmas in the middle of the darkest month of the year .... wondering if those who made that decision did it with that in mind -- that in the darkest moment, in the dead of winter, in the shortest days with the least light, the Light is born .... as a miracle from beyond ....

then i got to thinking that all my life I'd heard that these people who made that decision did it to Christianize an already existing pagan holiday, the Saturnalia I think, as the Christian church did with many things, and how some debunk it because of that ....

some won't use the things formerly used by darkness because they seem to them to be stained, unusable ....

yet is this not our commission, to divinize, to recover, to reconcile, all which had been misused before??? ....

i remember when my kids were trick or treat age and the issue came up with some "christian" parents not letting their kids participate because it was the devil's day ....

i said, "I'm not letting the devil have a day, it's the Lord's day!" and my kids got to dress up and have a fun time ....

so i'm for continuing on, even in low light on a day in spring that feels like winter, seeing only the LIGHT that ever shines in darkness, and ascribing no fruit to the liar & accuser .... "God was in Christ, reconciling THE WORLD unto himself" ....