HAPPY BIRTHDAY?

I read your post with interest as this sounds like my birthday parties...mind you I haven`t had one in several years. Now that I am 65 I am not really sure I want one lol. Seriously, your post is one I hear repeatedly at this time of year only from fewer and fewer folks. Those who really care about Christmas in the way you write about are decreasing in number. The younger generation (i.e, our children and their children) are not necessarily seeing Christmas as a spiritual event as much as they are seeing it as a secular one. Throughout the New Testament there is no command to celebrate the birth of Christ as there is in observing the Lord`s Supper (i.e. commumion) yet I agree it is fitting to remember our Saviour`s birth and to celebrate it in a spiritual manner. We often blame the `World`or the worldly minded for commercializing Christmas...billions of $$$$$ are spent on gifts for loved ones...and not so loved. Some `christians`` need to accept responsibility for the decline in worshipping and honouring our Lord. Lets not put all the blame on the unsaved. Briefly, I see & hear of so many christians who profess to love Christ yet demonstrate just the opposite - how sad, how tragic. Here is some Christmas reality. I live in a city of over 500,000 40% of whom live in poverty. Yes there are those who give to help in way of donations. Thats as far as it goes. We who live in the `middle class`society appear to care more about giving lip service not enough sacrificial service. We need to get out of our comfortable homes, pews, our comfortable religions, our cars and wal the streets - not in the upscale streets but the allies, the river banks and bridges and see what is becoming of humanity. In the dinningroom of the Men`s Emergency shelter hangs a picture of homeless people standing in a food line waiting to be served one of the homeless men in the picture is Christ waiting His turn. I see young families with their children, some with infants coming in for a free meal. I know of religious organizations who sell what people donate back to the poor and homeless. When all one has is $570 a month to pay rent, buy food & clothing and see so many suffer from poverty and neglect its hard to sayu `happy birthday`` to anybody. It is true that many who live in poverty take unfair advantage of those who give so generously which I do NOT condone. Just last night a young man came into our shelter, his face sweaty from boozing it up, gather his belongings and tell me he can`t stay becauise of his boozing, drugs and can`t give up his criminal activities. He knows he is an alcoholic but is not ready to give it up in spite of attending AA meetings, etc. He is 19. Another young man (about 25) told me he prefers to be out in minus 10C (+14F) with winds up to 30 - 40 mph. with his cheap wine than remain where its warm and safe. We see so much human tragedy in our society that we (christians) have become immune to it. We don`t want to see it because this reality bothers us deeply - until someone close to us or maybe even some of us are caught in its snare and we become victims of poverty. Did you know for every homeless person there are 23 more just a step away from being homeless? Do you know that on any given day in our Canadian cities there are over 10,000 who are homeless, many with mental health problems. Where are our christian friends then? Many of us don't like to face, much less deal with this reality. This Christmas, Boxing day & New years day while many (christians) will be out celebrating whether it be at a party or in worship services I will be working with homeless alcoholics, drug addicts, poverty stricken, divorced bitter men who see no hope for themselves. Suicides will dramatically increase. My friend who is a step away from being homeless will be staying with a a invalid older woman who demanding and cranky as they come. This is our Christmas, I paint a dark picture of a Christmas that is a reality. To be honest I would feel very much out of place at a "birthday party" and I wonder if Christ would feel at home you see He was homeless