No one knows what day Jesus Christ was born on. From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. So why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday as Christmas, on December the 25th?
The answer lies in the pagan origins of Christmas. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.
In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.
In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.
Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means “wheel,” the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods.
The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees.
http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm
YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2009 when…
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2 You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 4.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your mobile phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the shopping.
7 Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen
8. Leaving the house without your mobile, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12 You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on this list
AND NOW YOU ARE LAUGHING at yourself.
That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. ~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Most motorcycle problems are caused by the nut that connects the handlebars to the saddle. ~Author Unknown
Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul. ~Author Unknown
Midnight bugs taste best. ~Author Unknown
You’re the guy that’ll be sneaking out of your bedroom at three o’clock in the morning to look at your bike. ~Paul Teutul, Sr., American Chopper, “Billy Joel”
It takes more love to share the saddle than it does to share the bed. ~Author Unknown
Bikes don’t leak oil, they mark their territory. ~Author Unknown
Keep your bike in good repair: motorcycle boots are not comfortable for walking. ~Author Unknown
Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. ~Hunter Thompson
The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome. ~Author Unknown
And I to my motorcycle
Parked like the soul of the junkyard
Restored, a bicycle fleshed
With power, and tore off
Up Highway 106, continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth,
Wringing the handlebar for speed,
Wild to be wreckage forever.
~James Dickey, “Cherrylog Road”
A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. ~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
What do you call a cyclist who doesn’t wear a helmet? An organ donor. ~David Perry
If you don’t ride in the rain, you don’t ride. ~Author Unknown
Whatever it is, it’s better in the wind. ~Author Unknown
Catching a yellow-jacket in your shirt at seventy miles per hour can double your vocabulary. ~Author Unknown
Life is too short for traffic. ~Dan Bellack
Work to ride and ride to work. ~Author Unknown
Burn rubber, not your soul, baby. ~Craig Fernandez and Reggie Bythewood, Biker Boyz
Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. ~Mac McCleary
Remember folks, street lights timed for 35 mph are also timed for 70 mph. ~Jim Samuels
Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window. ~Author Unknown
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. ~Author Unknown
Well-trained reflexes are quicker than luck. ~Author Unknown
Don’t argue with an 18-wheeler. ~Author Unknown
Safety doesn’t happen by accident. ~Author Unknown
Sometimes the best communication happens when you’re on separate bikes. ~Author Unknown
When you’re riding lead, don’t spit. ~Author Unknown
Maintenance is as much art as it is science. ~Author Unknown
Safety is a cheap and effective insurance policy. ~Author Unknown
Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly. ~Author Unknown
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol. ~Author Unknown
Two-lane blacktop isn’t a highway – it’s an attitude. ~Author Unknown
Accidents hurt – safety doesn’t. ~Author Unknown
If you ride like there’s no tomorrow, there won’t be. ~Author Unknown
Keep the paint up, and the rubber down! ~Author Unknown
Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don’t. Some can’t. ~Author Unknown
Life may begin at 30, but it doesn’t get real interesting until about 150. ~Author Unknown
This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.
“I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.
People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter’s night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve received your test results and they’re not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.
You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?
Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.
I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world
and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.
