Category: Words To Live By

December 25^th has finally arrived once again. Today marks a day where a glance into the many homes in the United States would probably see presents from small to large lying under a festively light Christmas tree. And by the end of today each of those nice bow-tied and vibrantly wrapped packages will be ripped open with the wrapping paper tossed easily aside into very large garbage bags, which end up on the curb a few days from now. Christmas has continued to grow into a present-centered holiday and sadly, it seems as if this is becoming the true meaning of the holiday for most these days.

But what is the true meaning of Christmas anyway?

I’m sure if you were to do a random poll of 100 individuals and ask them this very question, each answer would likely be different. I would guess many would say it’s about being with family and loved ones, and of course children would say it’s definitely about the gifts. Then there are those who would respond they don’t even celebrate this holiday for various reasons including religious or personal ones. But the most interesting answer to that question for me is from those who claim the holiday is solely about Christ’s birth.

Did you know that Christ wasn’t even born even close to this time of the year? Ironically, theologians and religious scholars have done enough research to know that Christ was actually born somewhere between March and September. But even more thought provoking is what I found on the origins of Christmas itself.

Before Christmas ever existed, there was a festival celebrated by the Romans between December 17^th and 25^th and was named Saturnalia. It was a week long period of lawlessness where the government was closed and people could not be punished for damaging property or hurting people. Each year this festival began with the Roman authorities choosing an enemy of the people to represent the “Lord of Misrule”. Each community at the time chose a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the end of this week on December 25^th, this person would then be innocently and brutally murdered with the belief that the forces of evil were being destroyed with them. Throughout the period leading up to this, it was common to see many acts of lawlessness, widespread intoxication, public nakedness, rape and other sexual debauchery, and a tradition of consuming human shaped biscuits.

By the 4^th century, Christianity was on the rise and its leaders at the time wanted to convert the pagans who celebrated this holiday. They were able to end up doing just that by promising them they would carry over the Saturnalia festival. Because the festival held no Christian principles, the leaders decided to start shifting the focus away from it by claiming December 25th as the birth of Christ and calling it Christmas. Unfortunately these Christian leaders soon discovered that this still didn’t lead to much success in reducing or changing the practices of the festival. So an early agreement was reached that if there was a massive observance on December 25^th for the Savior’s birth, that the holiday could be celebrated similar to how it always had been. In fact, in many historical texts, it is known that early Christians were noted for their drinking, sexual indulgence, and singing naked in the streets (which actually was the precursor to caroling).  As the centuries passed, the pagan practices slowly started to disappear though.

Something I found extremely interesting that I never learned in high school about our country’s history was how the Puritans banned the observance of Christmas between 1659 and 1681. The sole reason for that was due to the Saturnalia practices still being tied into the Christmas holiday at the time for everyone else.

But even as late as the 18^th and 19^th centuries in Rome, some of the festival’s practices could still be detected as rabbis were forced to wear clownish outfits and march throughout the streets of the city to the jeers and pelts of various objects by the people. And even on December 25^th, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Anti-Semitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In fact, in Warsaw, 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge other numbers were maimed, and many Jewish women were raped.

Thank God none of this occurs anymore on December 25^th!

So while the main focus these days seems to have has shifted quite a bit to that of giving those nice bow-tied and vibrantly wrapped presents, I think that’s a whole lot better than the idea of getting drunk, raping, and murdering people, which regularly once occurred on this very day.

I honestly couldn’t imagine myself living in a society that did the practices that originated during Saturnalia; especially not with the focus I have today on serving God. Hopefully your practices and traditions today are far from this as well. But whatever they are, it’s my only hope and prayer that the true meaning of Christmas for you will involve the spreading of love and light and nothing else.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever been around someone who always seems to complain about everyone in their life and finds something wrong with each of them? If so, have you noticed how those individuals also seem to always place the blame for the problems they have in their life on everyone else but themselves? The sad thing about all of those individuals who are like this is that they expect the world has to change before their life will get better. Ironically though, the one person that truly needs to change to make this happen is the one person they’re not complaining about or placing the blame on, and that’s themselves.

Mahatma Gandhi once summed this up quite perfectly when he said “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

Unfortunately, I spent much of my entire life doing the exact opposite.

I once loved to criticize almost everyone I spent time with. It was a common thing for me to get angry about something they were doing. I’d often tell myself that my life would be so much better if they would just change certain aspects of themselves. But what I never realized is that each of those aspects I was wanting those people to change were the things I most needed to change within myself. Each of those people I was hoping would change were only being a mirror for me to take a deeper look into myself, except the reality was that I didn’t want to.

The best image I can conjure up of when someone becomes like this in their life is to think of a person crossing their arms, frowning, and pointing their finger in a disciplinary way at everyone else. The real truth in this image is that their finger needs to be pointing at only one person and that’s back at themselves. I’ve learned over the years that any anger or frustration I feel towards anyone is something I still have work to do around within myself. For years, I avoided that work though. I really just wanted the world to change to make my life feel better. But as Gandhi inferred, it really doesn’t work that way. Waiting around for the world to change only left me in a constant state of irritation and feeling let down.

I felt that way frequently in so many of my closest relationships where I kept telling myself that things would get better if only they would change “this” or “that” part of themselves. Years were shed off my life waiting around for those changes to happen with each of them. They never came though and basically I became blinded from seeing the real truth in that I wasn’t changing either. As when I really started focusing on making spiritual changes in my life, I began to grow apart from most of those relationships. That’s only because I started seeing how each of them were unhealthy for me. It’s when I started observing how those relationships were nothing more than two unhealthy people choosing to stay with each other and remain toxic. The more I worked on changing, the more I grew apart from each of them. The less I worked on changing myself, the more I became afraid to leave them and instead focused on the changes I felt they needed to do.

Thank God, this isn’t the case anymore as my levels of anger and frustration with others are so much less today. I believe that’s much in part due to all the work I’ve done within myself to change and grow spiritually. I don’t maintain relationships with people anymore who aren’t willing to put forth the effort to change. To put in more precisely, I don’t want to be around anyone anymore who constantly complains about others or blames others for their misery in life. Doing either is really just their way of shifting the focus off of the fact that they don’t want to put forth the hard work and effort it takes to change to see their world become a better place.

For all those years I didn’t want to see that truth, I lost friends because they were changing and I wasn’t. And as I said a minute ago, I also stayed in relationships that were toxic and only became more sick because of it. Even worse, I fell in addictions to deal with my stubbornness to change. It eventually became a very lonely place to be in and that’s what forced me one day to look in the mirror and say maybe I need to change.

The bottom line is this. When everyone else is gone from your life and you have no one else to complain about or place the blame on, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and glance into any mirror. It’s in there you will see the person you really are complaining about, who is most deserving of your blame. As it’s you who is the one that needs to start making some serious changes in your life. I can promise you though once you start doing so, that much healthier people will begin gravitating back into your life and you’ll also begin seeing the world around you a whole lot better too…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Yesterday I spoke about the people who frequently leave their trash behind in public places, such as at movie theaters, with an expectation that someone else will clean up after them. Today, I want to discuss a related subject about the people who purposely litter directly in the environment.

Littering is a big problem, especially in the United States. I’m sure you’ve seen it happening at least once, and most likely even more then that, around you at some point in time. Or maybe you’ve even done it yourself here and there thinking it’s not really that big of a deal for the rare times you have. Well here are 10 interesting facts you may not know about when it comes to the downsides of littering:

1. Over 800 Americans are killed each year in litter-attributed motor vehicle accidents.
2. It takes 50-60 years for an aluminum can to decompose, 450-1000 years for a plastic bottle, 20-1000 years for a plastic bag, 2-10 years for cigarette butts, and ironically, it even takes up to 2 years for orange peels and banana skins to decompose.
3. Litter strewn areas actually lead others to want to litter even more in those areas.
4. Many small animals crawl into bottles or jars getting stuck in the process and slowly starve to death. They also get caught in those plastic shopping bags, six pack rings, and old fishing lines and then they can’t get away from danger or they suffocate. And every year, millions of animals die this way.
5. Many plants and areas abundant with natural vegetation are destroyed each year due to the toxicity created by litter.
6. Litter removal costs almost 10 percent of district budgets statewide and usually is in the amount of millions. This only leads back to us with higher taxes and more money coming out of our pockets.
7. Close to 20 percent of roadside litter is actually recyclable.
8. Many cigarette butts thrown out car windows lead to roadside brush fires and wildfires.
9. Much of the toxic litter gets consumed into crops and livestock on farms that eventually makes its way to our tables to consume.
10. Spitting chewing gum out of our mouths into anywhere in the environment is a major health issue because of the bacteria contained in it, as well as the chemicals needed to remove it off the roads and sidewalks where it lands. Gum is also not biodegradable and animals often mistake it for food where death can occur from them trying to digest it.

I’ve always been curious as to why people purposely litter, even when they know at least a few of these facts. Through my Internet research, I was able to discover the number one reason why is that people are too lazy and can’t be bothered to find a trash receptacle. Some other reasons included the lack of environmental education, not having a sense of pride in their community, or being raised in families who littered themselves.

Doing all of this research into littering has truly opened my eyes quite a bit. I’ve seen how even some of my own past actions can change now. It saddened me to realize that my former gum spitting habits and fruit remains disposals out my car window could have caused great harm in a world I’m trying very hard to create more love and light in. Educating myself on this topic has definitely changed my perception completely. Choosing to repeat these actions now would be unspiritual and just plain ignorant on my part.

I’m really glad I did the research on the litter problem in our country. It helped me out tremendously and it’s my hope that it will help educate others as well. But the education factor is only the beginning. Changing one’s littering behaviors is obviously the next step. And maybe even more importantly than this is something else we can all do, that my Higher Power showed me will help to reduce the litter problem in our country…The next time you see any litter on the ground nearby, try picking it up and bringing it to the nearest trash bin. You’ll be surprised on how much this actually ends up influencing others who observe this to start looking at their own behaviors and do the same. Maybe then our litter problem will start to drastically reduce in our country…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson