Article by Alex Gordon

Christmas – the real meaning of Christmas

What amazing people the Salvation Army are! Not for them the guile and the deceit of the television evangelists who try to force their views onto everyone for money and power. Not for them the weakness and timidity of spirit carried by some members of the clergy. No, they stand in the rain and the cold bringing the true meaning of Christmas to the streets by quietly inviting people to give a little money, which they then use to directly help those most in need, and when they do help, they do it kindly, compassionately and with true humility. The people they help are not made to sing a hymn or say a prayer; they simply know that someone does actually care about them.

The Salvation Army are true shamans, changing bad things into good things. They are true magicians; they create real magic where there is none. They create hope where everything is hopeless, happiness where everything is misery, and they are true Christians.

‘Go and do something!’ Yes, what a brilliant idea, what an inspiring thought. It doesn’t matter where we begin, so long as we do something, but it does matter when we begin, we must begin now.

Let us give no succour to the enemies of goodness. Let us bring the laws of this world into line with the Universal laws of cause and effect and oppose evil wherever we find it. Let us create a world where there is no sanctuary and no peace for thieves, murderers, rapists, war-mongers, bringers of despair and misery great or small, swindlers, fraudsters, those who love corruption and deception. Let us banish them from our midst, punish them. If they wish to change their wicked ways then they can do so, and come back amongst us, but until they do, they must have no place and no part with us. The onus is on them to change and flow with the natural order of life, not for us to understand them. What is there to understand about evil, save for the fact that it hurts and makes people weep?

Evil people beware, your days are numbered. The Universe knows you, knows your rotten souls and it has marked you. Change now, or die and never come back, for you will never be allowed back, indeed, there will be no way back for you.

Christ died in agony that we might live, and understand, and empower ourselves. Down the centuries the cynics and evil-doers have been busy corrupting and mocking this truth, but just as they spat on Christ, if you let them, they will spit on your Christmas. They will rob your house, beat you up, burn your car, steal your presents, trick you into miserable debt, pick your pocket, sell you brightly-packaged food for your Christmas feast where the chickens and the turkeys have been abused in the most appalling ways. Take a look inside a slaughter-house, see how animals are actually treated and killed, see their terror and blind panic and agony and see if you can still eat meat, and enjoy your feast. The agony has not stopped.

Even if one does not refer to themselves as a Christian, they can surely see that here was a truly good man, a kind and loving man, a man who changed bad things into good things, and now, soon, it will be the feast of Christ, the day when we celebrate His existence. He was not as the church portrays Him to be. He knew his chosen destiny and He had all those years in which to worry and dread the approaching day when He would be nailed up on a cross of wood. He was troubled, afraid, lonely, desperate, yet still managed to heal the sick and raise the dead and tell people how to be free. He smiled too, and He had a beautiful smile.

There is no Santa Claus, no, there is something better. Every Christmas Eve a Great Spirit comes to this world and flies around it and scatters energy over the earth, and wherever that energy falls, like fairy-dust, it changes despair to hope, tears to joy, want to abundance, and when it touches a hard heart, it seeks to melt it, and when it touches a hateful soul, it seeks to change it, just like the spirits tried to change Ebenezer Scrooge. If you listen carefully, just before mid-night on Christmas Eve, you may hear this Spirit, and you will be blessed. But this Spirit is tired, and the times of it’s coming are few now. Time is of the essence.

The Spirit is tired because it cries (Oh yes, even spirits cry). Often it’s magic falls on hard hearts which refuse to change, on wounds that bad people will not allow to heal, on corruption that wicked people continue to perpetuate, and it is so sad that wicked people cannot see, and understand, and change, and that they must die.

That Spirit is in us too, if we remember what it was like to be a child, and if we can recall our lost innocence, and our abandoned dreams. Why have we stopped laughing? Where has our joy gone? Why are people still crying?

Let us banish evil-doers from our midst and expose them to the Universe and say ‘here they are, we have found them, do with them as you will, for you are the power, and we are just people trying to live on one lonely planet in the vast sea of existence – we want no part with them anymore’. And then, let us heal. Heal ourselves, heal the poor and the sick, heal animals, heal the good Earth.

Do something, however small. And then, the sad Spirit of Christmas will be renewed and empowered, and Christ will observe His feast-day and say, ‘well met’.

The day after Christmas is too late, then the moment has gone, forever. That Spirit of Christmas Present will fade, grow old and move to join all it’s predecessors, but the beautiful truth is, that it is not too late. Christmas has yet to come, there is still time, precious, precious time in which to do something.

Will you do something, please?