{"id":108466,"date":"2024-12-29T21:15:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T04:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=108466"},"modified":"2024-12-29T21:15:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T04:15:14","slug":"in-the-bleak-post-christmas-midwinter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/12\/in-the-bleak-post-christmas-midwinter.html","title":{"rendered":"In the bleak post-Christmas midwinter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"wide,<\/a>
An un-groomed path in the winter \u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was young, the weeks-long build-up to Christmas was always followed \u2014 usually by the afternoon of 25 December \u2014 by a severe let-down. \u00a0After at least a month of mounting anticipation, Christmas was done. \u00a0The presents had arrived, which was wonderful, but the surprises were past. \u00a0There was nothing left for me to look toward. \u00a0(I\u2019ve never cared much about New Year\u2019s Eve.)<\/p>\n

My relationship to Christmas is substantially different than it once was. \u00a0I\u2019ve long since learned where presents really come from, for one thing, and my understanding of its religious significance is (I hope!) much deeper than when I was a child or even a teenager. \u00a0Still, there is an undeniable sense of disappointment as Christmas recedes into the past. \u00a0And that is perhaps especially so now that I\u2019ve moved up to Utah from my native Southern California. \u00a0I used to think it miserably cold when nighttime temperatures sank to into the fifties. \u00a0The often-snowless cold of Utah Decembers and Januaries, though, is a very different matter, with its frequent inversions, its barren and leafless trees, and its short days. \u00a0A line from the \u201cChronicles of Narnia,\u201d from the first book of the series to appear in print, which was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/em> (1950), has long come to my mind in the days after 25 December:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is winter in Narnia,\u201d said Mr. Tumnus, \u201cand has been for ever so long\u2026. always winter, but never Christmas.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We haven\u2019t been entirely in the doldrums, of course. \u00a0On Saturday, for example, we had a lunch party with the members of the reading group \u2014 the Gadianton Polysophical Marching and Chowder Society \u2014 to which we\u2019ve now belonged for several decades. \u00a0(My wife and I are the youngest members of the group, though, and we\u2019ve been losing friends over the past several years at an increasing pace.)<\/p>\n

One of the things that I\u2019ve most enjoyed doing in the days since Christmas, however, is something else that we did on Saturday: \u00a0My wife and I took our five-year-old granddaughter to University Place Mall in Orem and visited the Giving Machines there. \u00a0\u201cIt is,\u201d truly, \u201cmore blessed to give than to receive,\u201d and we enjoyed our time with the Giving Machines very much. \u00a0(If you haven\u2019t done anything with the Giving Machines yet, please don\u2019t miss the opportunity: \u00a0\u201cShare Your Light at a Giving Machine.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0And if there are no Giving Machines near you, or if they\u2019ve already closed, you can still donate online. \u00a0But don\u2019t delay! \u00a0The 2024 Giving Machine campaign will end shortly.)<\/p>\n

We concentrated our donations largely but not entirely on food. \u00a0We also donated cute little piglets, which our granddaughter loved. \u00a0(They are adorably pictured on the symbolic cartridge that one buys at the Giving Machines.) \u00a0We want our grandchildren to understand the joy of giving to others. \u00a0Saturday helped a bit with that.<\/p>\n

\"Thorvaldsen<\/a>
The replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen\u2019s \u201cChristus,\u201d the resurrected Christ, as it stood for many years in the North Visitors Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A word, by the way, about the saying, which is attributed to Jesus at Acts 20:35, that \u201cIt is more blessed to give than to receive.\u201d \u00a0It occurs in the Acts of the Apostles, which was written by Luke the Evangelist. \u00a0But it doesn\u2019t appear in any of the four gospels \u2014 including Luke\u2019s own. \u00a0So where did Luke get it?<\/p>\n

Moreover, the fact that Luke was apparently quoting from a source that we no longer possess \u2014 and that he refers to the saying of Jesus as if he considers it well known to his readers \u2014 proves beyond reasonable question that the New Testament gospels as they have come down to us do not represent a complete record of the teachings of Jesus. \u00a0This should, of course, already have been obvious from the fact that it would take only a relatively few hours to read through every word of Jesus that is recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John \u2014 even allowing for the fact that very many of them are repeated at least three times (in the synoptic gospels). \u00a0That is relatively little to show for the roughly three years of Jesus\u2019 public ministry \u2014 even when we include the nine words of Acts 20:35 in the King James Version (six in the original Greek text). \u00a0The question, then, is how many of the words of Jesus are lost? \u00a0What portion of his teaching do we still have?<\/p>\n

Which raises yet another question: \u00a0If we were somehow to recover some of those missing words from Jesus \u2014 let\u2019s assume, for purposes of argument, that they have been established to be demonstrably authentic \u2014 how would mainstream Christendom react? \u00a0For example, would our Evangelical Protestant friends welcome the discovery, or would they resist it? \u00a0Would they be willing to expand their canon? \u00a0And the question extends well beyond the words of Jesus alone. \u00a0Would a hypothetical retrieval of Paul\u2019s lost letter to the Corinthians be welcomed?<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>
The Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saturday\u2019s BYU football victory in San Antonio\u2019s \u201cAlamo Bowl\u201d over the University of Colorado is being described as a high point in the school\u2019s football history and in its athletic history more broadly. \u00a0With its Heisman Trophy-winning wide receiver and its very successful quarterback and its glamorous superstar \u201cCoach Prime,\u201d Colorado was favored to win. \u00a0But BYU\u2019s victory was solid, very visible, and deeply satisfying. \u00a0It has been widely covered. \u00a0However, here\u2019s another very good story connected with the game, and it comes from the very heart of the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122: \u00a0\u201cBYU\u2019s donation drive ahead of Alamo Bowl caps season of service:\u00a0BYU alumni take part in Cougs Care service projects at road football games\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

It raises the burning question: \u00a0Why can\u2019t theism and theists just leave us alone? \u00a0On top of all of their other crimes against art and music and literature and families and human health and just about every other good thing, must they also attempt to pollute the purity of sports<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 When I was young, the weeks-long build-up to Christmas was always followed \u2014 usually by the afternoon of 25 December \u2014 by a severe let-down. \u00a0After at least a month of mounting anticipation, Christmas was done. \u00a0The presents had arrived, which was wonderful, but the surprises were past. \u00a0There was nothing left for me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":16652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38341,38344,2517,10615,26446,4297],"class_list":["post-108466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acts-2035","tag-alamo-bowl","tag-christmas","tag-colorado","tag-giving-machine","tag-san-antonio"],"yoast_head":"\nIn the bleak post-Christmas midwinter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  When I was young, the weeks-long build-up to Christmas 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