Baby Jesus

Next time, try Manger.com
for your lodging needs
--RangerAgainstWar ©

But the wisdom that is from above
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
and easy to be entreated, full of mercy
and good fruits, without partiality,
and without hypocrisy
--James 3:17

A lot of Christians wear crosses.
Do you think if Jesus comes back
he ever wants to see a fucking cross?
It’s kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis
wearing a sniper-rifle pendant.
“Hey Jackie, just thinking of John.
We loved him.”
--Bill Hicks

Dear Lord baby Jesus,
we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest
of Dominos, KFC, and the always delicious
Taco Bell
--Talladega Nights,
The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
______________

What does Christmas mean? Here's Ranger's take.

The whole idea was the dawn of a new consciousness: The old God of wrath was superseded by the birth of a new idea in the form of the Baby Jesus. Saith He, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God what is God's.

But the Baby Jesus morphed into the supporter of temporal power even while serving God and country, an odd couple if ever there was one. To Caesar and his Praetorian governor was ceded the power to beat, torture and condemn men to the cross. But it all works out well because the clergy will help speed you on your way out of this vale of tears.

In that lineage, today we have a President with more power than 100 megatons of Caesars who can nail a citizen cleric like al-Awlaki to a modern cross -- a Hellfire missile. That same President can put a troublesome lad like Bradley Manning in prison sans trial. Manning -- neither a terrorist nor a spy, but a disaffected and disillusioned young man.

The power to arbitrarily slap an individual in prison may not be as dramatic as nailing a young Jew on a cross, but the end game may be the same. Why celebrate Christmas if Jesus just brought us back 'round to a vengeful, wrathful God, a God whose judgments are meted out by his secular representatives. Our national policies have resurrected the God of old.

Hypocrisy reigns when our Secretary of State Clinton hails Chinese dissidents and Arabs yelling in the streets, and visits Myanmar dissidents, while our country places Bradley Manning in solitary confinement. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 7:21) Hard to know what that will is today, since we are told everything changed after 9-11-01. Have we transvalued all of our N.T. values and fallen back into perpetual battle? Lacrimae rerum.

The advent of Jesus was for naught because we are still Old Testament. Save when it comes to justification for some old fashioned greed and consumption. Ho, ho, ho.