This year Christmas and Hanukkah seem to be entwined. This is a time when individuals reestablish within their hearts and with family and friends their relationship to tradition and belief.
The Festival of Lights began at sundown this past Sunday. And this evening in Christian churches throughout the nation members held candles and sang to commemorate the birth of a child in a manager.
A group of us attended the First Baptist Church of Providence, RI this evening to sing, light candles, and to hear the words of our neighbor Rev. Dan Ivins. He had an interesting perspective on Christmas. He told a story of a man who took his teen-age wife with him to Bethlehem to protect her from the gossip of those wondering about the young woman with child.
While many have looked at the inn-keeper as a man who would not open his doors to the young couple, he told of a man who gave a gift to Joseph and Mary, the privacy of birth — a birth celebrated in song and in liturgy even today as “the newborn king.” The full text will be posted at: First Baptist Church
According to About.com, “The festival of Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) was established to commemorate the Jewish Maccabees’ military victory over the Greek-Syrians and the rededication of the Second Temple, which had been desecrated by the Greek-Syrians, to the worship of God. Thus, Hanukkah is a celebration of Jewish national survival and religious freedom.” Judaism
To feel a part of the two holidays, here are two special programs from National Public Radio www.NPR.org with links so that you might listen to each, A Hanukkah Lights Celebration and a Jazz Piano Christmas Celebration.
From their website: NPR.org, December 3, 2008 “An NPR holiday tradition for nearly two decades, Hanukkah Lights presents brand new fiction to celebrate and illuminate the holiday season — moving tales of discovery and reconciliation, the persistence of hope and the promise of undimmed light — read by Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz.” Festival of Lights
Also from their website: “NPR.org, December 12, 2008 – This year, there’s a Latin tinge to NPR’s holiday music tradition. The 19th annual A Jazz Piano Christmas features three of the most respected names in Latin jazz: pianists Arturo O’Farrill, Eliane Elias and Rebeca Mauleon. An up-and-coming piano talent joins the celebration, too: Angel Echevarria, 19, grew up listening to salsa music in New York City. ” A Jazz Piano Christmas
If one thinks about the two holidays, they are really celebrations of gratitude, at least in my world. And so I re-read on of my postings on kindness and found two quotes to live by:
from author Henry James: “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
from Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
At both Hanukkah and Christmas there is an exchange of gifts, but the greatest gifts we can give to one another are gratitude, forgiveness, and love.
Happy Holidays / R
Copyright 2008 Rita Watson