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Season’s Greetings, Pulpiteers! It is at last yuletide, and ever so festive, especially if you are not yet hospitalized.
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style!
In the air there’s a feeling of Covid.
In our nation’s capital, where I live, the spirit of the times is decorated in red and white and green — white people from red states corrupted by fossil-fuel greenbacks, cheerfully denying science, dooming the planet and lifting babies out of poverty to settle them gently into deeper poverty, their cries of hunger piercing the silent night. In English or auf the original Deutsch, the sacred lyrics eternally resonate.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles ‘nein.’ Wir sind nicht wacht.
And what is that I hear in the near distance? Something familiar dashing in our direction? Could it be a sleigh? Could it be a retrograde court decision undoing a hard-won human right? Jingle, jingle…
Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade
Dark Ages on the way
O, what fun it is to ride
Toward a theocratic day-ay!
The songs of a season, embedded so deeply in our hearts. They remind us not about what keeps us apart, but what binds us together, such as love for our families and planetary doom.
O Holy Night!
The stars are brightly shining.
It’s one of the last nights for Earth!
Long lay the world in drilling and in mining
Thanks to the greedy who know not its worth
For just some hope the weary soul rejoices
That we might have a new and glorious morn!
Heeeeere … come the seas.
O, seas are daily rising
Oh fuck, we’re fucked
We’re fucked, like online porn
Oh fuck, we’re fucked
We’re fucked like online porn
What’s so wondrous about Christmas the world over is the idea — in church and in the greater culture — that someone watches over you. It’s true, kids! You better watch out! You better not cry!
He's making a list
And checking it twice,
Gonna write down who’s black and who’s white.
Jim Crow is a-comin’ to town.
He knows where you are voting,
Your numbers make him quake;
He knows that you can tip the scales
So he says your votes are fake.
For 11½ months a year, we plod through the conflicts of politics and everyday life, splitting hairs and debating facts. But now ’tis the season of eternal truths, and blessed be we that have the answers — in all their glory — at our fingertips.
On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
4 TikTok dances
3 Nutty theories
2 Threats of violence
and a deal on a car warranty.
As we settle in to celebrate the winter solstice, or the birth of the savior or just the good tidings of the season, one thing is for sure. All of us will be touched by small acts of kindness and unimaginable acts of malice, cowardice, hatred, stupidity and greed. But how to say in a fresh way what has so often been said? Well, really, there is no need.
And so, I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two.
Altho' it's been said many times,
Many ways,
“Climate liars, vote deniers, no-vax choirs, screeeeew yooooooooou”
I suggest that to best enjoy Bob Garfield's rewrites one must belt them out using opera-voice volume. The only problem then is to moderate the guffawing to be able to simultaneously laugh and sing. Exhausting, but worth the effort. Then listen to David Sedaris read his Santaland Diaries ("Little elf! LITTLE ELF!") If that menu doesn't get your endolphins swimming through your veins, you may need drugs.