Not the Tree

you might be expecting. And not what springs to mind for me either- as we enter the season of Advent. But then as we are assulted earlier and earlier every year with with the commercialization of christmas and the "true spirit of christmas" has become time spent with family, not the coming Birth of Christ, I found this display of  bloody, battered, tormented Christ's- nailed to crosses more Christmas-like than all the decorations going up, the cheery songs, the fevered shopping, and the red and white and green. Strange?

So when you touch a branch of your christmas tree this season, feel its soft needles, delight in the lights and beautiful ornaments, smell its sweet fragrance remember how un-yielding the wood became, that the smell was of spilled blood, soured wine and darkness came on the earth. I will.

And Rejoice! For the same gift we are about to celebrate in the Gift of the Birth of Christ is offered to us eternally in the Gift of His Death!

a small note to many of my friends of faiths other than Christian. I find it very interesting, and refreshing, that most other faiths ( or society?) have yet to "commercialize" their more important religous celebrations as Christianity has with its two most significant ones.