7 O'clock News / Silent Night

Not “calm,” not “bright”...

A wondrous Christmas hymn, “Silent Night” was written by a German priest Josef Mohr in ( maybe before) 1816.
Needless to say, northern Europe in the early 1800’s was neither calm nor bright, nor holy, nor at peace, nor filled with love’s pure light, nor redeemed by grace.

There was a high infant mortality rate, crop failures, ravaging disease, and horrendous slaughter. Europe had had almost continuous, calamitous war for 25 years! No “calm” there.
Nothing bright or holy!

Napoleonic troops and anti-French troops had ravaged back and forth. 558,000 French-lead soldiers died during the campaign into Russia. In 1813, over 600,000 soldiers fought in one battle alone at Leipzig, Saxony. As many as 110,000 were killed or wounded.

Approximately 1 million or more civilian died from that war. Total deaths reached between 3 to even 6 million! Then Germany as a confederation was created from parts of the former Holy Roman Empire, but German nationalists assassinated leaders… Speaking of assassinations, that takes us back to the time of Jesus’s birth in Roman Palestine under Herod the Great in about 4 B.C.E.

Not a time of love, peace, goodness, Godliness, or light either.

Nor was Britain at the birth of the Quaker movement in the 1600’s. Strangely, not even the early Quakers waged peace, contrary to many Friends histories and popular understanding! Many of the early Quakers fought in the great slaughter of the English Civil War.

Traagically, George Fox who would later emphasize the Lamb’s War, the peaceful way of Jesus, at first urged the Puritan killer Oliver Cromwell to carry forth his holy war all the way to Rome!! “Let thy soldiers go forth…that thou may rock the nations as a cradle.”

Not at all like the cradled-manger of Jesus.

So much for “silent night, holy night”...

Instead, even with those Friends of Jesus, the Children of Light, there was an ocean of darkness at first...

Nor is there any peace and holiness in the 21st century. Multi-millions of Christian Russian Orthodox soldiers and their leaders continue to invade and slaughter thousands of innocent Ukrainians.


Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and taken to Christian Orthodox Russia.

Then there is the endless massacres of Palestine-Israel, the Sudan, etc.

Consider that powerful “Silent Night” meditative song by Simon and Garfunkel back in the 1960’s, also a horrific time of slaughter.

What a paradoxical contrast between the way of Jesus versus how Christians, Muslims, and Jews trash Jesus’ way now.

May we truly witness of the love and peace of God in this often Christ-less, unholy season.

Yet still hoping--despite endless despairing news--

in the Light of Care, Good, True, Just...

Daniel Wilcox

Still Missing Star and Cradle

Art by Banksy*

Bethlehem's still missing the star and cradle...the news is so tragic, more of the same--

like this poem concerning Christmas in Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 1974--


Missing Star and Cradle

Weird Christmas Eve 40 times past
With no holly, blinking red or green lights,

No 'holy' decorations, only the gaudy glare
Of cold Jerusalem's neon theater sign;

We watched Catch 22 with our kibbutz bunch
After being frisked for bombs at the entrance.

Years explode by while politicians yet pitch
Uncradled in the maze of their doctrinal hype;

The sacred cave's still dark and unstable,
For more unwise men, so starless, misrule.


Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Danse Macabre
and in poetry collection,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls





Palestinian attempts vehicular attack, is shot dead
Yoav Zitun 12.18.15, 17:19 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4741130,00.html

"A Palestinian attempted to commit a vehicular terror attack on Friday afternoon during rioting in Silwad in the West Bank. He was shot dead by soldiers. No other people were wounded."

Palestinians in car attacks--run down Israelis and kill them.

--




"Violent clashes broke out between dozens of Palestinian youths and Israeli forces near the Bilal mosque in Bethlehem on Friday. Israeli forces fired tear gas and live bullets at youths."

"The Palestinian activists threw petrol bombs and stones using slingshots to protest against ongoing occupation and escalating violence. Thirty-six people were injured."
https://www.rt.com/in-motion/323842-palestine-israeli-forces-clashes/

"Towering walls and militarized fences now encircle Bethlehem, turning the 4,000-year-old city into a virtual prison for its Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens. Bethlehem has only three gates to the outside world, all tightly controlled by Israeli occupation forces."
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/bethlehem.html

"Israel has confiscated almost all the agricultural land in the area for illegal settlements, making it impossible for many Palestinian farmers to continue tending their land. Outside the town, the fields where shepherds once watched their flocks are being filled by Israeli housing blocs and roads barred to the descendants of those shepherds."

Israeli Army bulldozed this Palestinian's orchard

*BETHLEHEM, West Bank (RNS) The Palestinian Authority has asked municipalities to tone down their public Christmas celebrations this year amid escalating violence between Palestinians and Israelis."

"Hanna Amireh, who heads a government committee on churches in the West Bank, confirmed the Palestinian Authority is requesting “a certain decrease” in festivities following the deaths of dozens of Palestinians since mid-September. The majority of them were killed during clashes with Israeli forces or carrying out terrorist attacks, according to the Israeli government."

"Amireh said the government has asked the municipality of Bethlehem, the town where Jesus was born and where official Palestinian celebrations of Christmas take place, not to set off holiday fireworks this year and to limit the festive lights and decorations that traditionally adorn the town to two main streets."
November 30, 2015
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/11/30/palestinian-authority-limits-christmas-celebrations-west-bank/
--

"Several stabbing attacks against Israelis occurred in and around Jerusalem Monday. In one instance, two Palestinian girls with scissors wounded a 70-year-old Palestinian man, thinking he was Israeli. One of the girls was killed by police.
The two girls, aged 14 and 16, stabbed the man with two pairs of scissors on Jaffa Road, a main thoroughfare between East and West Jerusalem. The attack caused wounds to the victim's head and back."

"The 16-year-old attacker was shot and killed by an Israeli police officer, while her 14-year-old accomplice was shot and wounded. Police said the two girls were related."
https://www.rt.com/news/323141-palestinian-israeli-stabbings-jerusalem/

*Art By Banksy
http://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/bethlehem06.html


Oh unholy night, where is the starred light?

Daniel Wilcox