It’s that most wonderful time of the year…

Not to sound sourpuss but, humans manufacture more shit from nothing than any other species. The fact a boy was born over two thousand years ago is insignificant. Except for the fact thirty-three years later he came back from the dead. The true miracle we relegate. We can’t seem to decide which day we want to celebrate the resurrection, but his birth is cast in stone on the calendar, and unmovable, with all kinds of crap piled around it.

There are tons of Gospels on the life of Jesus, lots of descriptions of his deeds, death, and events after death but only a paragraph about his birth. So we embellish the vacuum.  The least significant event of his life, the one thing we all have in common with him, we treat like a Roman festival slaughtering beasts left and right and consuming them.  Then we converge on temples and bring gifts. Probably because we can comprehend birthdays, but not death days. I wonder what Jesus thinks of what we have done with is humble beginnings?

For him it was a long journey through the sands to an evening of looking at the stars with the waste products of ruminants all about. We omit that and add in our own bull shit. But sitting here on this starry night, with the smell of horse poop up the beach, I wonder if I haven’t tangentially captured the spirit of Christmas. My journey long, I checked into an inn, and the odor of the stable and an open fire is not far away.