FryDay - Immaculately

...and another one's gone and another one's gone....another one bites the dust! Another work week almost over. I've put in for Friday 12/22 off so I will have a 5 day weekend xmas weekend.

I'm at work and the other day I put out the few xmas holiday decorations I have. Throughout the year I keep them in a bag in my file cabinet. I bring them out and put them around my workspace, this year a cubicle, for 3 weeks then I pack them away again. I'm the only Buddhist at this agency, which is 90+% Christian, and I am only one of two who have decorated as of yet. I'm grateful to not decorate at home this year. F put out a fiber-optic xmas plant. That's all she'll do this year as well. She is in mourning and doesn't feel like xmas at all. Neither do I, but not for mourning. I just feel so detached from the religious aspect of xmas at this point. It's about as relevent to my life as celebrating Moses' or Mohammed's birthday.

Something else of complete irrelevance is today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In 1439 the Council of Basel stated that the belief was in accordance with Catholic faith, and in 1709 Pope Clement XI made the feast of the Immaculate Conception a holy day of obligation (fasting and Mass). In 1854 Pope Pius IX issued a papal statement making the Immaculate Conception official church dogma. The Immaculate Conception relates to Mary, mother of Jesus, having been born without original sin. So not only was Jesus born without human intercourse, but Mary, though conceived in the usual sexual way was given a pass from original sin, and all sin throughout her life, by God himself. Ergo, an immaculate conception. That makes her worthy to have been the mother of God. And we westerners think its weird that Muslim jihadist suicide bombers can believe they will be rewarded with 37 virgins in heaven. Heaven obviously has the corner on virgins!

Not much else going on today. Looking forward to a quiet evening at home. It is EXTREMELY cold for us southerners. Last night was in the 30's, and tonight it is forcasted to go below 30o. I will make a nice fire tonight and we will eat leftovers. And we will LIKE it!

It's been a pretty good week. The Buddha Relics Tour came to town. The special puja Monday night. Seeing Julian, if even for a brief time on Monday. The quiet, but busy, work week. The quiet and oh-so-pleasant home life. The visit Wednesday evening by Lori's new puppy, Hannah, and the time she spent playing with Yeshe. Wishing my father happy birthday on his 76th! The ease with which I was able to replace my and F's windshield wiper blades. The house cleaning that got done this week. It's the small things in life that make it pleasant to be alive.

I'll give George Carlin the last word today:

"I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood."