Rude People

It must be that time of the season. There has not been a day without someone, no matter what the circumstance, flowing inward, thrashing out for no real reason. I must admit that people become more impatient with others during the Christmas season. I'll never forget my father picking up the family after church, and the congregation turning the parking lot into a war zone, beeping horns, yelling at each other...my father sat without starting the car and said, "Well, that must have been a good sermon."

Today while driving to work, an old lady, possibly 75 to 85, tailgated me, yelling at the top of her voice. (I saw her hatred in the rear view mirror) She drove a bulking four wheel drive, black, petrol guzzling, with bull bar, seriously wanting to crash the back end of my car because, I suspect, I was driving too slow.

Finally she passed me, waving her fist in the air, her expression a combination of blankness and hatred.

A few years ago sitting in the doctors office, situated in one of the cities largest shopping centres, at Christmas time, a woman entered carried by two men, her head had been bashed: blood covered her entirely.

She told me later that she had entered a parking space in front of this man, he thought the parking space was his; he jumped out of his car with a iron stick and began to beat her. Why? Well, it was HIS parking space. No other reason.

He was Christmas shopping, the season of Giving and Good Will for All.

I guess he missed the point.

When I ask anyone these days about Christmas, they say it's a painful time, a time they would sooner do without.

We've missed the point.

Christ is about love and compassion, about humility, about sacrifice, but most of all about LOVE.

"Ask and You Shall Receive." Love, care and try to see around you, then, and then only, will you see...

The old woman in the four wheel drive obviously was very angry, not at me, but someting or someone else. Knowing this turned my response to one of pity and laughter. She didn't wreck my car but evidently expressed her anger, wrong target, but expressed nevertheless.

No doubt, to be sure, I'm ambivilent about Christmas because there is so much bagage that carries with the holiday, way too much.

Maybe someday, we'll understand what the REAL holiday is all about.

LOVE.