This Is Wrong

Being involved in a consensual relationship like this shouldn’t be a felony. This is crazy! Please help by signing the petition and spreading the story.

Tips for Understanding People with Chronic Pain

Excellent advice. Those of us with chronic pain need understanding and love!

The Burqa Experience

This woman is brave enough to “[explore] American fear of the veiled.” It’s a very exciting project, I think!

This Christmas

Photograph: David Hedges/SWNS.com

Christmas was always a big deal for my family. Tree decorating, watching specials together, wrapping presents, driving around town to look at the Christmas lights… so many things we always did together. For me, Christmas is a time of happiness, warmth, love and excitement. My Honey didn’t get the same experience growing up. He remembers fights over decorating, lots of stress… with some good things thrown in, thankfully. But still. Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy and love.

This Christmas season has been very out of the ordinary, at least for me. Illness and finances have kept us from doing a lot of the things we wanted to do to celebrate Christmas. The tree we bought has very sparse decorations, but it hasn’t mattered. Seeing the cheery green, well-lit tree has been a great source of joy for us. The two year old and I colored Christmas cards for a few people, and then enjoyed coloring a picture of a Yule log to hang on the fridge. We haven’t done any Christmas baking (much to my chagrin). There aren’t any presents under the tree. But those things really don’t matter, not once you stop and really think about them.

Merry Christmas!

The holiday season is in full swing now. I love Christmas time – singing the songs, decorating everything, making special foods, time spent with family and friends. This will be my 2nd Christmas as a non-Christian. I still find Christmas to be a wondrous time, and yes, I still call it Christmas. The Nativity Story is still very beautiful to me. It’s also not unique to Christianity (son of a god is born, will save the world by sacrificing himself); it’s a very common theme running through a lot of other mythologies. It’s a story that’s been told for thousands of years, all over the world, and it’s still captivating people today. The Christian additions of singing angels, a stable filled with animals and hay, and wise men journeying from afar all make the story even more special to people, I think. It’s a cozy, heart warming story that makes people smile and open their hearts with love and joy.

I view Christianity’s stories as mythology, the same as the rest of the world’s mythologies. They are all works of humanity that we can learn from. So I will teach my children about Jesus and why Christmas has the name it does, right along with the other great stories of the world.

May you have a merry Christmas and happy holidays, friend!