A 2-Dimensional Christmas and Other Ways to Yank the Rug Out From Under the Holidaze

From melissadesa.wordpress.com

With none of my household being Christian, Christmas is an odd holiday to celebrate.  But as my daughter so aptly observed, “I like getting presents!”  Yes, tis the season!  Commerce has packaged December as the month of buying, whether you be Christian, Jewish, or African-American, or none of these.  Who wants to be left out of the present-getting?  (A lot of people, but…)  I most likely would not celebrate Christmas at all, if it were not for my daughter’s desire to eat sugar, get presents, and do fun creative stuff while cooped up in the house.  As a mystic reveler, it is my challenge to turn Christmas on its head.

Goodbye, Baby Jesus.  Hello, 2-dimensional Christmas.

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QUR’AN 32:22—A meditation on the signs of God, by Baraka B

Lightning in Italy

A short piece by friend of Revelers, Baraka B, on the signs of God in the Qur’an.

Who is more wrong than s/he who is reminded of the signs of God but then turns away from them? We will take vengeance on the sinners.
—Qur’an 32:22

Firstly, what (according to the Qur’an) are the “signs of God?” Lightening and rain (30:24), ships and wind (42:32-33, 35), sky and earth (30:26), sleep (30:23), wine and wholesome food (16:67), diversity of humanity (30:22), love between people (30:21).

What strikes me most about this sura is both the dictate to turn towards the signs of God, which based on the Qur’an itself are the very lifestuffs of existence (weather, love, food and drink, sky, etc.) mixed with the intensity of the punishment for not doing so: vengeance. So what is it about turning towards the rain that makes turning away so reviled?

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