Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Suppose Christians celebrated Christmas like a Biblical time of Jubilee?

Most of us give to some charity or other at Christmas. Suppose we, perhaps gradually over the next few years, decrease the amount of giving to ourselves and families and friends and give more to the causes outside ourselves that turn us on? Those that inspire us with the ideal of changing humankind through a meeting of physical and spiritual needs.

We hear the old refrain each time at Christmas about too much materialism and the ignoring of the real “reason for the season.” Only, since retailers depend on the holidays for as much as a third of their selling, wouldn’t the economy wreck (further) if we stopped our Christmas splurges? We don’t want to increase our country’s economic woes do we?’

According to economists, the poor and less well-off must spend every bit of money that comes their way. So what we give to the poor is more likely to wend its way into the economy of the country, it seems to me. A true stimulus package. Likewise, the help we give the spiritually needy may reap dividends if they become more useful members of society.

Christmas, a time of Jubilee