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A 21st Century Christmas.

I have a question for you, is the world fast enough for you yet? Despite my current writer's block, I am trying to muster up enough courage to give a realistic reflection of how I believe the world is changing with it's celebration of Christmas. When I was growing up, I didn't have to muster up faith or feel good feelings, they just came naturally with the year coming to an end, and the birth of the Saviour. The picture I want to paint is a bleak one, throughout the years I have personally struggled with the gaining commercialization of Christmas, and then there were the years when Christians struggled against the political correctness of the world, that removed the Christ out of Christmas. This is the holiday that the world likes to celebrate, but growing up there was a clear sense of goodwill especially during this time.

Sometimes with age comes boredom and always trying to keep up with the changing world can suck the hope dry, for some people. Hope is not hard to find if you are looking for it, and if you are not looking for happiness, faith or hope, I strongly encourage you to stop reading this. Christmas is about finding hope and turning from the things that bring us down. Christmas should be a time of forgiveness, and love, and giving people a new start. The trick in life, as you get older is to continue to see the world with fresh eyes. What keeps my spirit young, is seeing the good in this world and seeing the good in people despite our selfishness and unforgiveness.

This life is very brief, and I think that seeing people forgetting to be kind, or mindful as we like to call it these days, makes me long for a time back when everyone was connected in a different way. We remembered things that we push out of our minds and our lives, why? Some of us have been disappointed, or are constantly being disappointed in life, all the more to have faith and rejoice that we are not alone in the world, especially during this Christmas season. I became a born again Christian in 1995, and I can see how the more simple you make life the happier you'll be.

Life has a tendency to shrink our mind and cause us to see the negatives in life, rather than embracing the wonder and the mystery of faith that takes us through this life and leads us to the next. Jesus told a story about certain people who make excuses to not follow him, and it applies to our current life. People start off good with God, but then they get so busy and push God out of their lives and out of their thinking. We are celebrating the birth of the Saviour of the World, and the reason why we are tired and miserable is because we forgot the message of Christmas. Seeing life the way God intended us to live it, brings peace into our hearts, despite the cruelty that often accompanies expressions of faith in the 21st Century.

In our lives we still need to make room for love, light, and love, and we need to seriously think about spreading goodwill to our brothers and sisters in our human family. I remember when my world was at peace, and I pray that this Christmas you get a sense of what it is like to live at peace with God, and peace and love in your heart to your fellow man and woman. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
 

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