Brenda Kay

This is a T.S. Eliot poem my father introduced me to last year. It’s now a part of my own personal Christmas tradition. On this blessed day, enjoy.

The Journey of the Magi

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/coulter_jewish_comment_another.html
(something about my mac makes me unable to view the “link” button)

In all sincerity, I don’t understand why comments like this are considered so offensive. If you forget for a moment that this is coming from a crazy b*tch like Ann Coulter, all that is happening here is that she’s saying Christians think they are right, that their way is the true way and the best way.

Is this really such a surprise? Is it really so politically incorrect? Of course Christians think their way is the best way; if they didn’t they would [hopefully] stop following it. Doesn’t almost every person think the world would be a better place if everyone thought the way he did? Certainly you can’t say Christians or the so-called religious right are the only ones who think this way.

She’s using “perfected” in the biblical sense – Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” [TNIV]. “He” being Christ, the “sacrifice” being His death and resurrection, “has made perfect” = has perfected, “those who are being made holy” = Christians. The whole chapter talks about how Christ nullifies the Old Testament beliefs about how sins become right with God – it’s an annulment of much of the Jewish faith. It then goes on to talk about how the only way this sacrifice applies to you is if you belief in Christ’s death and resurrection. These Christian beliefs are neither rare nor secret.

Maybe it’s just offensive because the way she said it, but honestly, what’s wrong with that statement? In my perfect world, everyone would be a Christian. To me, that’s not a risky or harsh statement; it just seems self-evident of most anyone who believes in the Bible. A “drive-by outrage”? Give me a break.

Yesterday, my latest column came out.

Today, a poorly argued letter to the editor was printed.

Much of what he [and the others who commented] said isn’t worth responding to, but I will mention one point that I originally intended to include in my column but did not have space for: I am not talking about a class that studies the various world religions and puts them side by side. While I do think everyone who wants to be a good “world citizen” should learn these things, I would put knowledge of the Bible even ahead of general world religion knowledge, at least while we’re talking about the United States. I won’t deny the influence the Koran, etc has had on our country and Western thought in total, but quite frankly, it’s nowhere near as great the influence of the Bible. I really don’t think someone who hasn’t a clue about the Bible can be considered well-educated.