A Holiday Tree For the White House

President Obama has announced that this year the White House will have a “holiday” tree instead of the traditional “Christmas” tree. This seems to have raised quite an uproar in the Christian community, and I have to admit, it really bothered me to an extent, as well. Then I began thinking about the symbolism of a Christmas tree and its origins and a different train of thought began to emerge. One only has to do a little research to find interesting facts about our tradition. First of all, decorating a tree during December is strictly a Pagan rite. The tree was originally set up outside and decorated with seeds, bread and other treats for the wildlife. Pagans believe that the Yule, approximately December 21st, is the beginning of the year as this is when the days grow longer. The tree was a celebration of this event, as well as the Yule log, which was supposed to be large enough to burn continuously throughout the 24 hour celebration. From the information I could find, the Christian community adopted this tradition in order to attract the Pagans to their faith. This was decided during the reign of Constantine, who saw his empire being torn apart because of warring religious factions. Constantine, who was Pagan himself, organized a council of religious leaders at Niceae in 325, three centuries after Christ’s death. These leaders voted on what rites and celebrations would be included in the Christian faith, as well as what writings were important enough to include in the official bible. Constantine converted to Christianity to keep his empire together and the newly reformed Christian faith was begun.
Since it is not recorded as to when the exact date of Christ’s birth, the Catholic Pope set December 25 as that time, and the event was celebrated as “Christ’s Mass” or “Christmas”. Personally, I don’t believe that Jesus was born in the heart of winter, but in the spring of the year. My reason for this belief is the mention of the shepherds watching over their flocks in the fields, which was more likely to be done in the warmer spring months.
So why would President Obama’s decision bother so many Christian? I believe it is because Christians feel their identity is being lost. America has always been a Christian country. With the influence of each new wave of immigrants, new beliefs and traditions are brought to this country, and we become more of a melting pot. I feel that our President is trying to show respect to all faiths in his actions. I would caution him, though, to not bend so far in trying to make this a country of all faiths that he loses sight of what has made this country last as long as it has under one government. The majority of Americans still have a basic belief in God and we live our lives according to our own personal relationships with him. I, as many of the Christian faith do, feel that our identity as a God-fearing nation is being slowly eroded into a cacophony of differing faiths, gods, beliefs, and traditions. An event which I feel will, in time, bring this great country to its knees.

The Question of God's Existence

My younger sister and I were having a conversation the other day, which isn’t really unusual. Somehow the subject came around to God. My sister is a decided agnostic; I, on the other hand, feel there just has to be some kind of higher power out there.

Her argument for being a non believer is that how could some wonderful, benevolent being, which is in charge of it all let all the terrible things happen in the world. This is a common argument among agnostics, and I do see their point. Sometimes it is very hard to have the faith that there is someone out there watching over us.

She also makes the point that with all the religions out there being in such conflict with each other, how one would be able to find a “true” one. Of course, each church believes that they have the truth and the others are just muddling along.

Let me give you a little background on how we were raised, and you might see how we come to have such divergent beliefs.

My mother was raised in a strict Christian household. As a child, though, I believe we went to whatever church sent a bus around to pick us up. I remember attending services at Nazarene, Baptist, and Church of Christ; all of which proclaimed they had the true gospel and you would need to be baptized according to their tenants in order to be saved. This sounded rather complicated to a young girl and I couldn’t see why a baptism in one church would be any better than any other.

My father didn’t really have any belief at all. I know my great grandfather attended a church, but I don’t really recall the rest of the family following his lead.

My mother is now Pentecostal, and very happy in her choice, which is fine for her.

I lean toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and am indeed of member, but I do have some problems with how some members interpret scripture. My main problem is when my husband died at the age of 55, many felt I should begin sitting with the widows and living accordingly. I did not feel the same and have had some great difficulty in even attending church for the past seven years.

The real issue seems to be that everyone believes that they are the one and only true religion and only those who come to believe as they do are considered believers. Some faiths even go so far as to be intent on wiping out all they consider unbelievers, which make everything even more confusing.

I have come to realize that faith and religion is not the same thing. Each of us must have our personal relationship with a higher power, whether that is Confucius, Mohammed, Christ, Buddha, or the myriad of others that we, on earth, believe in.

My personal relationship is with Christ, even if I don’t feel that it is the same as others of my religion. I have to believe that there is something better on the other side of this life. Otherwise, what reason is there to live? I generally feel that my life here has been one of darkness, with tiny spots of light; the birth of my children and grandchildren, and meeting my third husband, who was the love of my life. Other than that, I do not feel particularly blessed even when I was living exactly as I was told I should be living. My husband still died less than a year after we had married, my eldest children lost their father, as well, in a motorcycle accident which made no sense, and my great nephew, Jesse, whom we all viewed as a shining star, was killed in a freak accident. I do see my sister’s point.

This is why I must believe that if I can just get through this life and keep faith that there is something better, so I will not go crazy. Since there is no way of actually proving one side of this argument or the other, I guess we’ll all just have to wait to see who was actually right.

Hunting - Sport or Not

Today I had occasion to do some shopping in one of our local farm stores. My youngest son, whose favorite pastime is browsing this top of market, took me on the grand tour. I say grand tour, but I’d been in the store before only I normally just get what I came in for and leave. This time he insisted we walk every aisle; including the hunting aisle.

Now, I was raised in a hunting family. Dad always bought his deer and elk tags and we depended on this meat to get us through the year. Once or twice in the fall my uncles and my dad would get together to hunt dove, quail, pheasant, sage grouse and cottontail rabbit. When I got old enough to hunt with Dad I would go along and help clean and carry whatever was on the agenda for that season. I can remember walking for several hours behind my dad as he tracked a deer or elk, and learning to stop immediately when he said to. You see, my dad had learned to watch for the game bird’s eye to blink. I could walk all day and not see a thing, but Daddy always came home with a full limit to put in the freezer. We were the same with fishing. We didn’t keep anything that wasn’t big enough to eat, and we ate what we were fishing for.

So today, as I was saying we were cruising through this farm store and now I’m paying attention to the stuff in the hunting aisles. Game blinds, deer stands, deer corn, you name it, they had it. Okay, I think, what the heck do they need all this stuff for? Well, here in Oklahoma as in some other states, all this stuff is legal to use to hunt wildlife. Which brings me to another that is legal here. Game farms where you tell the owner what you want to hunt for, they turn it loose in a certain area, show where they turned it loose, then you “hunt” it. The majority of this stuff is actually raised on the farm, is used to human contact, and probably wouldn’t understand that somebody was going to hunt it if you told it.

Let me state this plainly: I am not against hunting. My family has relied on it to help put food on the table for as long as I can remember. I think hunting is a wonderful way of managing our wildlife and the revenue it brings in is very much needed by the agencies to which the task has been given. However, placing bait out for wildlife then sitting comfortably in a stand while the deer comes to you is NOT hunting. Privately held game farms and ranches where the wildlife is hand raised then released for someone who refers to himself as a sportsman is not hunting in my book either; culling, maybe, but not hunting. Let’s not mix up hunting with sports.

Sports are games. We cheer for our favorite team, or play the game ourselves. We wear the colors of our team. We go out to a stadium and enjoy hotdogs, peanuts, chips, beer, etc. We host tailgate parties. Enjoying sports is inviting the gang over to watch football, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc., on our brand new big screen TV.

Hunting is just that. It’s going out early in the morning, seeing your breath steam in the frosty air, and tracking your game. Walking, for hours sometimes, just to see an animal’s tracks in the frost or snow are hunting. You only take what you’re going to eat, and don’t worry how big the rack is on that elk, or how it’s going to look above the fireplace. There’s no guarantee you’re going to bag your limit in hunting. You don’t even get the guarantee you’ll see your prey. If you’re lucky; you’ve got a good guide, or done your homework before the season starts and know where the good game trails are; the weather is with you; and you make a decent shot – that’s hunting.

The Politicizing of the Olympics

You’ve probably heard that we – meaning Chicago – missed out as hosts to the 2012 Olympics. I know I’d seen a couple of news blurbs before the voting had started, mostly featuring Michelle Obama courting those responsible for the decision. I hadn’t really thought of the Olympics as being anything more than sports highest goal; the best and most elite athletes of the world bringing home the gold, not which country gets to host. I know, I know, there’s the prestige and, of course, the revenue that comes along with hosting the Olympics. But, blaming our DEMOCRAT president and his cabinet because obviously someone has screwed up something that should have been such a simple task, since Chicago lost out in the first round, come on people, that’s just absurd. Now why would all the reporters, bloggers, etc. swarm such a subject as being political, or even noteworthy? The Olympics have nothing to do with politics…
Hmmm, well now let me think, didn’t something political happen with the Olympics way back in history somewhere? Oh yeah, in Berlin’s 1936 Olympics didn’t Hitler storm out when Jesse Owens, a black athlete, won four gold medals in track and field. Kind of screwed up that old Arian Nation thing about being the best, didn’t it? But we’re too enlightened for that kind of thing now. There’s no reason for those kinds of tantrums. Oh yeah, didn’t some country boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a protest of the USSR invading Afghanistan? Umm, I think that was us, wasn’t it? How embarrassing. And to think, those irresponsible, mean old Russians boycotted us right back during the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. How dare they!
Well, I guess if you want to get right down to brass tacks, the Olympics had a political undertone as early as A.D. 394 when Emperor Theodosius had to abolish them due to bitter relations between the Romans and the Greeks. In 1896 the US didn’t even compete as official representatives. A ten man team barely made it to Athens in time to participate. Another political move that was highly debatable was the cancelation of Jim Thorpe’s 1912 record of winning both the decathlon and pentathlon because he had played professional baseball; a move that was reversed in 1983.
So the question now should be when are we going to get along without all those nasty invisible political lines drawn in the sand? Losing out on hosting the Olympics in Chicago was nothing more than the rest of the world wanting to hold them in Rio. It wasn’t a political statement that I can see. I honestly don’t think the rest of the world really cares which political party is in the white house, only what we, as a country, do that affects their little corner. You would think that since humankind has reached space and found out that earth is more a beautiful blue gem floating in the darkness, than a bunch of little lines which no one can really see, all of us would be more inclined to consider this our planet over whatever political view we might have.

I’ve been hearing a lot about President Obama’s proposal for reformed healthcare lately on the news. Of course, that’s to be expected considering the media knows it’s such a hot topic in D.C. Everyone has their own view of a healthcare system that would allow for everyone, regardless of financial position, to have access to medical coverage. Me? I tend to take a middle of the road approach.
First of all, Mr. President, is this proposal going to make it through both the Senate and the House intact and with no little unobtrusive little riders hanging on that’s going to make the whole thing an exercise in pork barrel spending? I realize that there is always a little give and take in Washington in order to get the votes you need for a bill to pass. For some time now, it seems like that give and take has turned into a whole lot of taking and not a lot of giving; at least for the majority of us Americans.
My second thought is – who is going to have access to this equality of health care? I really have no objections for people of other nations coming to America to build a better life for their family; as long as it’s done legally. Like many other Americans, I am so tired of a welfare system that leans towards hand outs to anyone who is not of Caucasian ancestry. You can talk to any of my friends and find that I am one of the least prejudiced people out there; skin color, nationality, etc. just doesn’t make any difference to me, however, even I can see when something just isn’t leaning the right way. Yes, all of us in this land are actually immigrants or descendants of immigrants somewhere down the line. Even “Native” Americans immigrated here thousands of years ago. My family has been here since sometime in the early 1700s. I know of others whose family tree only goes back one or two generations. All of us came here legally. I’d just like to have this reformed health care to be for legal Americans, not someone who snuck into our country, for whatever reason. And, by the way Mr. Businessman, who says he can’t run his business and still maintain a profit if it weren’t for illegal aliens – BALONEY!!! Our tax code was written with you in mind. If you’re business isn’t reaping a profit you’re either a lousy business person, or you need a new accountant.
Lastly, I’d like to address the medical community. If President Obama manages to get an intact, fair, and decent healthcare bill passed, what are your obligations? Are you going to stand by your diagnosis of a patient, and truly try to find a cure for what ails that person, or do you feel that a quick five to ten minutes sitting on a little stool across the room from someone is as far as it goes? Personally, I’ve had my fill of doctors who prescribe whatever drug the salesman has on special that month, regardless of what ailment the patient is suffering from. In no way am I accusing all health care professionals of this type of shoddy service – I am just stating that I’ve come across more than my share of you who seem to be in it for the money instead of truly caring for another person’s health.

From the Mouths of Babes...

Recently my daughter and I took advantage of a Humane Society rabies clinic to get her cat vaccinated. While standing in line, my daughter saw a sign in the store window of the pet supply store which was sponsoring the event and pointed it out to me, laughing. The sign read “Now Accepting EBT Cards”. I saw no humor in the sign. Since it was posted on a pet supply store, it was just another example of our government wasting our tax dollars.
Looking as if she were explaining to a child, my daughter pointed out what she thought was so funny: “EBT”. She thought it was a misspelled word. No, I explained to her, that was an acronym. Then the woman behind me stated, “Be thankful you don’t know what it is.” That’s when it hit me. My youngest daughter, who is 14 years old and in high school, didn’t know what an EBT card was. I honestly almost jumped for joy right there in the middle of a line of people holding their pets and making a fool of myself.
You see, even though from time to time I have had to ask for help from a system I deplore to help raise my kids, the fact that my daughter didn’t know what an EBT card was for, showed me I wasn’t taking advantage of the system. I was not raising another generation of welfare babies. Hallelujah!!! Even though the system was broken and in dire need of repair, I was not using it unnecessarily.
The welfare system was originally created to help those in desperate need during the midst of a crisis depression in our nation. It has since been bent and twisted into a monster with no head or tail; creating a vicious cycle of handouts that generations have learned is there for the taking. The “Land of milk and honey” was never intended to hand your daily bread to you on a silver platter. Our forefathers fought and died to maintain a way of life that had nothing to do with living off welfare. I was raised that if I worked hard and saved my money, I would have a good life. Wealth was never promised to me, but pride in knowing I had earned the life I lived.
Situations have come about, some from my own bad decisions, some not, that have made it necessary to ask for a little help, please. To provide for medical care that I couldn’t afford, give me that extra bit of funds to make it through college, and make sure there was enough food on the table to keep my kids healthy. However, no one, no matter how broken a system is, should even want to rely on handouts to live. Get you through a lean time, yes, if family is unable to do so, but never a permanent replacement for an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
Let’s get with it people, if we want changes in our government and what it does with our billions of tax dollars, we’re going to have to show by example. Is your local politician corrupt our wasteful? Throw his butt out of office. Is your congressman or senator listening more to lobbyists than to his constituents? Give them the boot. We hired them when we voted; we can just as easily fire them in the same way. You don’t like the way the government is run. Get off your couch and run yourself. Get involved. It’s time to “put up or shut up”.

Politics and TV

Have you ever noticed that when anything politically related happens every channel on the television broadcasts it. I realize that even as a young girl when the president delivered a speech all channels showed the speech; all three of them. There might be a bit comment before or after, but that was it. As I've gotten older I do have an interest in our political landscape. However when all television channels MUST not only broadcast the event but give their opinion, as well as the opinion of several others, doesn't it seem to be overdoing it a bit much.

The passing of Senator Kennedy is a good example. Just as others are, I am saddened that such a political icon has passed. I was not prepared for every news, biography, and history channel to play the Kennedy family history over and over and over again. Compare this to the passing of Dominic Dunn, an icon in his own right for covering those stories that other journalists wouldn't touch. Just because it would embarrass a wealthy or royal family did not deter him from finding the truth and telling it. He died within one day of Senator Kennedy.

The most I saw of his passing was from Tru TV. They played an evening of Dominic Dunn's "The Power and Privilege of Justice" and dedicated it to him.

My point? There are many who do good in this life whether the news cameras take notice or not. Let's not forget our own families, friends, and hometown heroes during these great media "feeding frenzies".

A Politically Incorrect Point of View

I will never claim to be politically correct. To me, that's just a way of saying you don't have a real point of view or don't want to offend anyone. Phooey!! The United States was founded on the principle of being able to speak our minds, to have our point of view, and the freedom to say so in public regardless of who is around to hear it.

Being a hardliner is not anywhere near my political view. My voting card says I'm a Republican, and I do agree with many of their party views. I probably disagree with just as many. I've voted both sides of the party line and plan to do so until such time as my right has been taken from me. Most of the time I can see both sides of a point of view, even if I disagree with yours, and expect you to respect me for that.

Those issues that I can only see as right or wrong are:

• If you parent a child, you are responsible for making sure that child is provided the care it needs to grow to adulthood. If you aren't prepared to do so, do not engage in sex or, be ready to place that child up for adoption to someone who is.
• Your freedom of religion does not entitle you to encroach upon mine. My relationship with God is my business, stay out of it.
• I choose to live in the United States of America so I can have the freedoms promised by our constitution. If you don't like our constitution move somewhere else and create your own.
• Our Constitution has been fought and died for. The blood of our forefathers, our sons, and our daughters are embedded within every word. It is a sacred document. Leave it alone.
• If you want to live on the soil of the United States, become a citizen. Period.