So This Is Christmas

The time has come and as with every year I rush to shops to spend my hard earn dollars buying gifts and food and generally attempting not to be caught up in the consumerism and over indulgence breed into us from an early age...

As I get older and my children also grow up it does get easier....

There are so many different cultures here in Oz it can be tricky when visiting friends who do not celebrate Christmas to know what to do....

Do you send a card?

Do you Give their child a gift?

Invite them to Lunch on Christmas Day?

We tend to invite them to celebrate the Spirit of the Day not the religious tone of it... and celebrate the more Pagan aspects of it as in time with family friends the sharing of meal and general good times... We do make an effort to imcorporate the various cultures of our friends into this special day and our friends also bring with them some of the traditional eats and drinks.... so it becomes a multicultural banquet of sorts....

Do you celebrate Christmas?

And how do you celebrate....

What are your Traditions?

Whats God Got to Do with It?

Everywhere I turn these days somebody is preaching. I find this both annoying and highly invasive. If I wanted to talk Religion I would go to an appropriate place not the local shopping Centre.

Where have all the Mormans gone I haven't had a knock at my door for ages?

I found them at the local Woolworths shopping centre handing out leaflets, is nothing sacrid anymore, I would think a casino would be more appropriate place to preach family values, Other than a shopping centre 6 weeks before Christmas when you are dragging 3 screaming kids through the shops and have just had one of them throw up on you and you only just arrived... oh! yes I am going to stop and talk about God! NOT.

So do you agree there is a time and a place for this or is anytime a good time?

Have you SEEN an Angel?

It doesn't seem to matter how old you are, what nationality or religious belief you have, you can see an Angel. Stories have been around for hundreds, if not thousands years regarding visitations of these winged beings. Some are beautiful and fill you with the most peaceful, inspiring feelings imagined, while others are nasty horrible creatures that give the viewer immense feelings of despire. I see this as the balance of good and bad, holy and evil etc....


But what is this about?

Why do people who have no apparent link to Christianity, see Angels? They are after all a representation of the Christian faith, or are they.

So many things we in Christian Society take for granted have their origins on old religions such as Paganism, Christmas and Easter to name two. Images and characters we commonly associate with the Bible also started in this old faith. Characters such as the Devil have for 2000 years been modeled on the image of the Green Man from ancients religions.

Demons such as the Incubus and Succubus have their origins in times well before Christianity.

One of the earliest mention of an incubus comes from Mesopotamia on the Sumerians king's list, ca. 2400, where the hero Gilgamesh's father is listed as Lilu. It is said that Lilu disturbs and seduces women in their sleep, while Lilitu, a female demon, appears to men in their erotic dreams. Two other corresponding demons appear as well, Ardat lili, who visits men by night and begets ghostly children from them, and Irdu lili, who is known as a male counterpart to Ardat lili and visits women by night and begets from them. These demons were originally storm demons, but they eventually became regarded as night demons due to mistaken etymology.

These things were absorbed by early Christians in order to give local villagers, who followed the Old Ways, an easier transition to the new faith. Christmas and Easter where given their timings to fit the villagers feasts and festivals. The Gods and Goddesses of the old ways where given new Christian names and the images merged into the new faith in order to make it all so much less confusing for the average person.

But the Christan faith is not alone, through all religions you can see merging of the Old Ways into new faiths, Islamic, Judaism, Hindi, Buddhist, and all other mainstream religions. Even today with the emergence of new variations on the Christian faith such as Pentecostal Churches, How this works, The Bible or instruction manual is read and meanings taken and interpreted in a manner which suits the reader and the flock of followers.

Why is it then we expect only Christians to see Angels.

Winged beings have had a place in society since time began, heard of a fairy?, the only difference is the ability of the participant to explain what is was for example:

A child raised in a Christian home who sees a ghostly figure, with wings and a glowing light would say they saw an Angel, but a child raised in Paddock, herding Mountain Goats in the Himalayas seeing the same thing would have a completely different view, to them it could be the mountain spirit, a demon, an ancestor....

So are Angels merely the brain and eyes playing tricks?

Are they from some Parallel dimension?

Do they exist only in fantasy?

Do Angels exist?

Why do we Love them so Much?

Are they truly sent by God and if so why are they dismissed as fanciful and fake?

After all Millions of people believe in a God they have never seen why should Angels be dismissed after all they are supposed to be his messengers.....