Perhaps it was the cumulative years of writing Advent sermons, gradually building up such a vivid sense of anticipation, that a creative outlet of joyous expression was bound to happen despite the tremendous adversity that lay ahead in my journey... Apparently, you can count on the biased CBC to mock Christmas. But the comic rant decrying those auto-generated carol playlists does have a point. Malls + holiday songs do not equal cheer. Rather, for me, they stir a rising cynicism like the 4 progressive stages of hypertension! The antidote is a necessary exercise of deeper reflection in response to the frenetic consumerism and the tinney holiday trappings of secularist attempts to replace Christ, the very reason for my joy in celebrating this season. I do love Christmas. This is the season for imagining what is possible, for dreaming new dreams, for hoping beyond hope. But someone observed that it is also the season when hope can be hardest to find, dreams hardest to believe. ...
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