Bright Blessings On This Day,
Gwyllm, Mary & Rowan
Monthly Archives: December 2018
The Christmas Truce of 1914: A Heartening Story of Humanity in the Middle of War
By Maria Popova (brainpickings.org)
In December of 1914, a series of grassroots, unofficial ceasefires took hold of the Western Front in the heat of WWI. On Christmas, soldiers from an estimated 100,000 British and German troops began to exchange seasonal greetings and sing songs across the trenches, some even walked over to their opponents bearing gifts. The incident became one of the most heart-warming displays of humanity in the history of human conflict and was dubbed the Christmas Truce.
Depiction of the Christmas Truce of 1914 by artist A. C. Michael, originally published in the Illustrated London News on January 9, 1915, with the caption “British and German Soldiers Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches.”
From the trenches, a 19-year-old British private by the name of Henry William Williams — a man of confounding contradictions himself, who would go on to become one of the most lyrical nature writers in the English language, an early admirer of Hitler, and an opponent of the Second World War — wrote to his mother on Boxing Day:
Dear Mother, I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 o’clock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a ‘dug-out’ (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. Oh dear, no! From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvellous, isn’t it?
This lovely short film captures the story and spirit of this symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amid one of history’s most violent and disgraceful failures of humanity.
Complement with Eleanor Roosevelt’s little-known children’s book about Christmas and hope amid war.
The divine light in you
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| I truly believe that we stand on the precipice of an amazing Shift that will reveal far more of humanity’s potential in the years ahead.
And on many levels, that Shift is intimately connected to what Christmas symbolizes for Christians: the birth of a new kind of consciousness in the form of a divine human. Only we’ve created a little glitch in this ancient story, which Jesus himself didn’t advocate — the belief that he was the ONLY child of God. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe that we are ALL children of the Divine. ALL emissaries of grace. ALL messengers here to uplift the world. Yes, we stumble and get lost. We can wander in the wilderness too long. We can hurt others. We can lose ourselves. But at the deepest core of who we are, we are children of God and expressions of the love of the Universe. Jesus is, in this view, less of a singular Messiah and more of an example to follow. A wayshower and revealer of truths that we already hold in our depths. If we forget the magnificence deep within us, we tend to define ourselves in far too limited ways. We shrink into ill-fitting and often frustrating boxes. We see ourselves as small and ineffectual rather than capable of gloriousness, goodness, and acts of beauty and blessing. I’ve sat in circles of high-security convicts and can say that I saw the light of the Divine in their eyes. I’ve facilitated workshops with recovering addicts and prostitutes, and the divine light is in them as well. No matter how far we seem to fall, there is something incorruptible, beautiful, and sublime at our core. Reconnecting with that spark is, for me, the essence of what Christmas is all about. So as we enter into this time, thank you for showing up as a perfect expression of YOU, a unique note in a vast concerto of music that is indescribably vast, intricate, and beautiful. There will never be another human precisely like you — even in billions of years of evolution. Thank you for being a present to us all! And thank you for joining with us in an adventure of service, healing, and awakening through our shared work.
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In Hoc Anno Domini
For the past 69 years, every year on Christmas eve, the Wall Street Journal runs the editorial below as its lead editorial. It was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster. I’ve repeatedly admired the beautiful poetry of the words. But this year, I think I understand a bit better what the words are pointing to. Christ represented a radical paradigm shift for the human race, a revolutionary/evolutionary shift in Consciousness for our species. It is said so well in the line from the Christmas carol “O Holy Night” ” … long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt its worth…” The Christ was a new level of awakening in human awareness, to the realization that every single individual is “beloved by God”, for they are a singular individuation of the One that is All. There had been particular adepts before this point (e.g. Buddha, Lao Tzu) who had also understood Truth, but they were very few. With the coming of the Christ, a leap forward had occurred in the evolution of humanity. The world’s civilizations before that point (Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, India, China, etc) had never really valued the individual beyond what they served for the group identity (the tribe, or band, or village they lived in). Thus, it was easy to justify keeping slaves and treating other persons inhumanely. But Christ represented a new relationship — in mind and in experience. The coming of the Christ was an IDEA in mind — an idea whose time had come.
–Melissa Goodnight, HW, M.
IN HOC ANNO DOMINI
December 23, 2018 (wsj.com)
When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.
Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.
But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?
Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus.PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?
Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.
Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Jesus
Grandfather Frost of Russia
Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker
Frameline
Published on Mar 2, 2010
Academy Award winning director Richard Schmiechen (The Times of Harvey Milk) vividly portrays the life and work of the woman described by the Los Angeles Times as “The Rosa Parks of Gay Rights” in Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker.
During the repressive 1950’s, Dr. Evelyn Hooker undertook ground breaking research that led to a radical discovery: homosexuals were not, by definition, “sick.” Dr. Hooker’s finding sent shock waves through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay rights – in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official manual of mental disorders. Startling archival footage of the medical procedure used to “cure” homosexuality, images from the underground gay world of the McCarthy era and home movies of literary icon Christopher Isherwood bring to life history which we must never forget. Dr. Hooker’s insights into gay marriage and the gay community (a term she coined), and the filmmakers’ winning approach make this documentary education at its most exciting and enjoyable.
Narrated by Patrick Stewart.
Richard Schmiechen 1991 75 min. USA
Karen Horney
Mike D
Published on Jan 19, 2016
Karen Horney (September 16, 1885 – December 4, 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views. This was particularly true of her theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis. Wikipedia
Mothers, Fathers & Why All Families Are Not Equal Warren Farrell & Jordan Peterson
Chzzmonkee
Published on May 11, 2018
Psychologists Warren Farrell and Jordan Peterson discuss mother and father roles in family relationships and the lifelong influence on the development of their children. Topics include Rough & Tumble, Empathy, Hangout Time, Do You Really Care, Family Dinner Nights, Shared Food and This is What I Heard You Say.
Japanese Wisdom
Cold tea and cold rice are bearable, but cold looks and cold words are not.
The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
If you understand everything you must be misinformed.
We learn little from victory and much from defeat.
Fortune will always come into a house with laughter.
One kind word can warm three winter months.
Boasting begins where wisdom stops.
The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.