Posted: 5 months ago

At this time of year, it is important that we all celebrate what has grown into a time of reflection, a time of love and peace, and not look to find fault with how some care to celebrate this marvelous, randomly-chosen day for what we can now call Christmas. Therefore “Happy Holidays”, however you might wish to use this time.

It is quite interesting to me that one of our members commented: “Our organization has been hijacked by the PC Police (which means, I would suppose, ‘the politically correct police’). As Rotarians, we must ask: “Is it the truth?” Have we as an eClub been ‘hijacked’ by some strange, recently-created governing body named the “PC Police”. And, beside that statement, this member has determined that the birth of Jesus Christ was December 25. But again: Is it the truth?

The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’ birth.  The earliest gospel –St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus.  This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birth date. From historical records, the year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery”. His calculation went as follows: a).In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome] or AUC).  Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of Rome’s reign, etc.; b). Dionysius worked from a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius; c).  Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign; d). If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28th year of reign); e). Augustus took power in 727 AUC, therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC; f). however, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth. And even that sequence, historians are guessing that this was Dionysius’ sequence of thought. In other words, there is no definitive date for the birth of Jesus, except what the Church, at some point in time, selected as that date. The Church decided to wed the secular celebrations of that time to the birth of Jesus. And since December 25th was a Roman holiday already which was celebrated widely, the Church decided that it was wise to choose this date since it would get non-believers to come, celebrate Saturnalia while going to church (being political correct, the Church choose the pagan holiday to coincide with what they wished to teach the uneducated citizens of that far off date, the official beginning of Christmas).

 Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17 and 25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week (which eventually became the ‘twelve days of Christmas’). At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season). One can see where the tradition of caroling was started and baking cookies on December 25th (except now we bundle up to carol and wear clothes and aprons to bake cookies). At that early time, the Church decorated its cathedrals with candles since Saturnalia was a celebration of light also (which now is celebrated with outside and inside decorations of lights and candles in many of the world’s homes). Therefore, in that long-passed time of the 4th century CE, Christianity took over and imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. And at that beginning, it worked. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.

 As Rotarians, we should be glad that the essence of that ‘long-past’ compromise to get more people into the Church was not followed in years to come (as it was at this ‘politically correct’ time of compromise within the Church-in fact, in time, the separation of church and state became the standard for our present day freedom to choose in a democracy). What was followed from this beginning is a time to get together, go to worship in a place of your choosing, gather the family as one unit at one time (with all your friends invited to share fellowship, goodwill, and service to each other-now that sounds like the essence of Rotary also), and begin to practice peace on earth, love for the other peoples of the world, and an opening up of ‘self’, giving presents and yourself across the globe.

 December 25th is not the date that Jesus was born (we do not know that date- and that has been proven as ‘the truth’- it is an arbitrary date set in early times by one monk and adopted by the Church) but as time has moved on, that is not important. What is important is what this date has become for millions across borders and around the world. It is still a compromise between secular and religious concerns but that is what it has always been from its creation as a date to celebrate many good things (and leave out the bad things that it was when it was first selected as a “politically correct” day for celebration-way back in the 4th century).

Posted: 5 months ago

This week's program reminded me of this brillant piece of writing done in the late 19th century (1897) in The New York Sun but will live forever when we are confronted with the imagination (linked with faith) and the established, genre reason of a limited mind (that is all of us compared to the wonders of the universe). I will not forget this piece again and I thought, as Membership Chairman this year, I would research it again and share it with you. our members so that you might copy it also: therefore, here it is:

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus By Francis P. Church, first published in The New York Sun in 1897

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Posted: 3 months ago

It is interesting and disturbing to read the FBI report on Steve Jobs (especially after reading three books on this man who helped shape the 21st century- the best was the recent biography which just came out at Christmas time). They went to some individuals who Jobs fired and asked them about him; and got the reply that "He distorted the truth many times."  This is true as far as it goes but it does not go far enough. Any creative individual distorts the "present-accepted truth" to make a new one which fits 'tomorrow'. DaVinci did this when he created flying machines, tanks, wings for individuals to fly at a time when the 'common genre truth' was 'if man was supposed to fly, God would have given him wings."

DaVinci and Jobs did not invent the technology that they used but they did expand it to fit tomorrow and tomorrow. Yes, Jobs had a 'distortion field' that he wrapped himself within when he thought that what was 'impossible' took only a little longer to do and minds that were not locked into 'accepted truths'.

In Rotary, that is what Paul Harris did. He thought that business must embrace service to be successful in the 20th century. Now that is a common truth but it was not in 1905 (except for Paul and a few others who believed as he did). They (the early Rotarians) did not accept that the only purpose of business was 'making money' but giving service, making superior products that met future and present needs, and use money to make their products beautiful as well as functional.

The FBI report and some media reports that I have seen recently make out Steve Jobs as a liar (whereas I like to think of his 'distortion field' as his way of 'embellishing reality'). What Jobs (and other creative future thinkers) have done and do today is not accept the present reality as the truth (except when it is a universal truth standing the test of the ages) but reshaping it. And if the reshaping is what many people embrace in the present for the future, then it becomes 'the truth of the moment' until another creative genius reshapes that into a 'future truth (which, of course, has a shelf life).

"Is it the truth?" only works as a question when it is a universal one that deals with the human condition, not the efforts of humans to reshape the truth for a better life. The question is important to start the process of finding what is present and future truth, but the answer is time-oriented, not absolute.