Perplexed Perspective

I am a Christmas Nut! I plan gifts and decorations months in advance. I impulse buy all manner of red and green paraphernalia all year long. I have a Christmas Jam playlist - and yes, it even includes N'Sync's 1998 smash hit cd Home for Christmas.

Why is Christmas my FAVORITE time of the year? Duh, it's the Spirit.

It's the peer pressure that causes even the grumpiest of us to take a break from humbugness. It is the one time a year I can, publicly and acceptably, crank Joy to the World to the rafters in my car, roll down my window and get traffic singing along. The Christmas Spirit lifts the weight of the world for so many us. And even under the most dire of circumstances, Christmas makes us happy.

Of course this year, things are different.

As a mom, as a Christian, hell, as a human being, Friday, December 14 has shaken even my over-the-top Christmas Spirit. Friday, December 14 confused and worried me. It made me fearful and sad. And even though I've gone back to happily gifting my way through the season, every time I look at a news site or hear about a memorial service, that gray cloud of confusion floats back onto the horizon.

Like so many of us, I have hung on the news of who, when, why, how. I have soaked up the addresses and responses. I have read, with teary eyes, the poems and tributes written and circulated a hundred different ways. And I am still confused.

I am confused that this is evolving into a conversation about gun control.

I am not a fan of the NRA. I believe the Second Amendment was meant to staff militias that we haven't needed in this country in over 100 years.

I also don't think our government has the right to tell it's responsible, tax paying citizens that they can't own guns. However, surely we can all agree that this is not a case study in a responsible, tax paying citizen owning guns and going nuts with guns, can't we?

Can we not all agree to focus on the illness, rather than the symptom? Are we so blinded by our collective affluence-induced arrogance that we don't get how simple the problem is? I'll give you that I can be simple-minded and unrealistic on any given day, but...

Where is the perfectly simple morality that my parents made sure I got and held onto from kindergarten? Where are the simple rules that have been the foundation of every great society in the world for, well, ever since they were written? Where is the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" in all of this?

I believe that the reason God gave Moses the Ten Commandments is because it is in all of our nature, from the moment of original sin, to do the things that God eventually decided he needed to tell us not to do. I believe that at our basest nature, we might all kill to get what we want. Or steal to make our families safe or happy. God gave us these rules to save us from ourselves.

God recognized that letting our basest nature lead us didn't make for Merry Christmases. It leads to confused and sad holiday seasons.

As a mom, as a Christian, hell, as a human being, I am COMMITTED to making sure my kids understand these most basic of moral codes. They may not understand the Constitution or Gun Control Legislation, but they do and will understand God's Law for us. It's simple, clear and in ten bite-sized pieces.

Finally, I think the best honor I can give and the most healing activity I can perform, is to make this Christmas season about LOVE. Because there is no doubt that LOVE is bright, and healthy and healing. It bears fruits of Gratitude and Graciousness. It yields prayers of Thanksgiving for what we have and prayers of supplication for those that have not.

I will actively LOVE and appreciate those close to me. And I will pray that someone close to the families in Newtown LOVE them like Jesus would.