Life In Japan: Christmas Season . . . Osaka

I read the other day that to serve some twisted notion of “inclusivity” and political correctness, a country in Europe has officially discouraged calling the Christmas holidays ‘Christmas holidays’, instead recommending ‘Winter celebration’ or some variation on that.

How odd! I won’t even get into the absurdity of this example of the culture war mentality or the arbitrary havoc wrought by cancel culture. It’s odd to compare this mentality with what is commonplace here in the East.

Christmas display in Beijing.

As I’ve written about before, my experience living and traveling Asia, has been that Christmas is celebrated with sheer enthusiasm and unabashed fervor in places like Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, China, even Cambodia.

Santa arrives in Cambodia!

None of these are close to being Christian countries. They are basically Buddhist. And China, Vietnam, and Cambodia are COMMUNIST COUNTRIES. Yet, their godless populations openly embrace the Christmas festivities, seeing nothing contradictory or offensive.

Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Granted, these celebrations are basically secular, sans mawkish religiosity. Hey! What’s new? Christmas is in America and much of the West just an orgy of spending on gifts, excessive amounts of food and libations, and piling on glittery decorations. Santa is not a religious icon, and I don’t remember seeing Mary and Joseph, votive candles, and frankincence at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, which officially kicks off the Christmas season. Visa and Mastercard each had a float.

Japan does Christmas in style. This year we went to Osaka and two floors of the huge Hankyu Department Store were Christmas themed. There was every holiday gift item from all over the world there. 

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Christmas Season . . . Osaka, Japan | John Rachel

Life In Japan: Kogenji Temple

I’ve commented several times before about the temples and shrines here in Japan. Some context would be helpful.

For six years, as a young boy, I went to Catholic school. Every day we filed into the church for Mass. Then, of course, as required to be good Catholics and in good standing with the Lord, we went to Mass on Sundays. Six days a week I sat through the most uninspiring, boring, frankly meaningless ritual imaginable. Back then, the Mass was in Latin. So I didn’t have a clue what was being said, and certainly didn’t care. Ugh!

It’s easy to understand that because of this forced “spiritual” exercise — which was about as spiritual as doing calisthenics — I eventually completely soured on religion, at least as it was practiced in much of the West. When the summer I turned 15 came around, I couldn’t handle priests, nuns, Sunday Missals, rosaries, confession, communion, churches, hymns, Masses, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory . . . NONE OF IT. I left the Catholic Church and never looked back.

I pretty much avoided churches from that point on. Of course, there was the occasional church wedding and out of respect for the new bride and groom, yes, I inserted myself reluctantly into the house of the Lord. Likewise, out of respect for history and aesthetics, I experienced the unparalleled scale and majesty of a host of cathedrals in Europe, even a couple in U.S., not there to pray but to fill my senses with the glory and awe of inspired architects, artists, and sculptors.

Then in 2006, I started to seriously see the world, much of my travels taking me to Asia. The spiritual vibrations were totally different. Buddhism and Hinduism pretty much set the tone for these countries. I discovered and experienced not just completely different theologies, but a totally unique — to my Western-nurtured sensibilities — psychological space. It was more personal, more introspective, more comfortable, more satisfying.

Going to a shrine or temple for me now is one of life’s simple pleasures. So last weekend, we went to Kogenji Temple in nearby Tamba. It’s not a particularly fancy or spectacular temple but it’s very popular this time of year for it’s maple trees.

It’s difficult and probably intellectually sloppy to make generalizations about religions and religious practices. I just know that spiritual sensibilities are extremely different here — about 180º opposite to my “American” religious experience.

Rather than go into a comparative theological exegesis, which would be long, most likely tedious, and risk after an exhaustive trudge being unwieldy or misleading, let me make a point with some very personal observations and stories.

When I was in Los Angeles working as a recording engineer and music producer, I became obsessed with watching televangelists. I don’t have to say more. You know what that scamming is all about. “Just put your hands on the TV screen and feel the power of the Lord. Then write me a check. God will make sure it comes back to you tenfold. So the more you give me, the more you get back from the bounteous blessings of the Savior!” There was on guy in particular I loved to watch. Peter Popoff was fantastic! He got busted but I guess he’s still at it. He’s a millionaire many times over. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven.” Hmm. Who said that? David Copperfield?

Going way back . . .

I can’t say what things are like now. But when I was a boy, I remember that the Sunday services ALWAYS included collecting donations. At a point about 2/3rds of the way through the Mass, ushers would shove these collection baskets aisle-by-aisle in front of every congregant, unmistakably signaling it was time to pony up. Of course, the requisite sermons at each service also always included appeals for money.

“You think holy water grows on trees? Come on, you cheap bastard!”

I have to say, the final straw for me was my father’s funeral. My mother had died 2 1/2 months earlier. I was still in shock. 14 years old. Both parents dead. As if I didn’t already have a lot of grief to bear, I sat and listened to the priest give the eulogy. You’ve seen this in the movies. Coffin at the front. Holy man in robes trying to give comfort and meaning to the tragedy. Well, the priest at my dad’s funeral decided to use the opportunity — since he had a nice captive audience, trembling, crying, with their defenses down — to talk about the renovations they had planned for the church. And guess what? They needed money! Yes, a great way to pay tribute to the corpse sealed up and ready to bury — we’d go from there to the cemetery in a procession of cars with little funeral flags on their antennas — was to spring for a nice donation to the current Building Fund Drive. I can’t describe how much I hated the man.

Okay, enough of all that “context”. Now we set our time machine to ‘The Present’ . . .

While there are donation boxes in the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan, making it easy to give financial support to their care and upkeep, NEVER does a monk solicit money. There are fees attached to, for example, them coming to your house to perform some ritual. But the rituals themselves don’t reference such material matters. Even Jesus preached (I’m paraphrasing) rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Spirit is spiritual. Money is material. If Christians knew about His teaching, then somewhere along the line, it was forgotten. Or buried. Maybe it’s in my father’s coffin.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Kogenji Temple | John Rachel

Life In Japan: Buddhism is fun!

Okay … the title is hyperbole. No religion is actually fun. Most seem preoccupied with scary demons, suffering, sacrifice, gnashing, weeping, incantations, uncomfortable positions, and men dressed in funny clothes.

But at least some Buddhists have a sense of humor!

We rode a chair lift to get to Matsuyama Castle!

My lovely wife, Masumi, arranged a three-day holiday this past weekend to Shikoku. We ate great noodles — Shikoku is the world udon capital — visited shrines and temples, saw some spectacular landscapes, and were taken by surprise and incredibly charmed by the island’s largest city, Matsuyama. There we ate local cuisine at an area restaurant, walked the streets and visited the shopping arcade, a feature which is part of every decent-sized Japanese city. We spent the better part of an afternoon at Matsuyama Castle, one of the biggest in Japan, and from my experience to date, the most spectacular in every respect. It’s over 500 years old and its sprawling compound sits on a hill overlooking the city.

The castle was phenomenal but the high-point — literally — of our very short trip for me personally was our visit to the sprawling grounds of Jizou-ji Temple. It’s located in Itano, Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku (the northeast region of the island, shortly after crossing the bridge from Awaji). Mind you, this temple was founded over 12 centuries ago and even has a big, knobby gingko tree which is over 800 years old. I suggest it was the high-point because it is situated on top of the highest mountain in the area, requiring us to to take a ropeway lift just to get within hiking distance.

Serene grounds of Jizou-Ji Temple.

What makes this temple truly unique are the 500 life-sized statues of 500 arhats. These men are enlightened followers of Buddha. None of them have hair.

Enlightened Buddhist monks offering their reaction to the human condition.

It seemed that just about every human emotion was on display, so I asked Masumi what exactly the point of this holy menagerie was. She explained that they were expressing the entire range of possible reactions to the idiocy of human behavior: their disbelief, shock, disapproval, bewilderment, disdain, disgust, mockery, denial, their resignation, horror, pleas for sanity, hope for improvement, futile escape from the undeniable truth.

These statues line the walkways, peak out from behind trees, sitting, standing, kneeling, offering their take on human folly and the ridiculous mess we tend to make out of things. You can see for yourself, their expressions are priceless.

As grim as many of them might appear, frankly it was impossible to not see the humor in the enterprise. A huge dose of irreverence tossed in with requisite piety.

This is sure a far-cry from the “religion” I got when I was growing up. Of course, this is a subject for a multi-volume tome — probably the most boring memoir ever written — but suffice it to say I grew up Catholic, even went to Catholic school for six years, under the tutelage of female sado-masochists, aka nuns. There are only two emotions entertained by Catholicism: shame and fear. I will confess, as the class clown for my elementary school, to at least trying to generate some comic relief. Which only lasted until either I was beaten with a ruler or long wooden pointer, or sent to the torture chamber of Mother Superior, the school’s official Reichsführer and final solution disciplinarian.

I realize there’s a pandemic destroying the economies, families and communities across the planet, but you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence of it here in Japan. People are out and about having fun. Most of them are Buddhists. Some of them are just wild and crazy.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]

Life In Japan: Buddhism is fun! | John Rachel

Life In Japan: Shrines and Temples

Living in a completely foreign culture is sometimes the best way to get insights into your own culture, to be able to see things that are so obvious they're hiding in plain sight, thus require your looking at them from "the outside" to make them apparent.

On a lighter note, let me append to that how utterly amazed I am by my talent for coming up with genuinely stupid questions about Japan, its customs, its culture, its people.

The particular one I'm about to reveal isn't really that bad . . . maybe only 4 or 5 on the cluelessness scale.  Here it is . . .

A few years back I asked my wife Masumi -- who displays monumental patience with me, probably because she knows I'm truly curious about Japan, not inclined to make nugatory small talk -- about the architectural manifestations of "spiritual life" here.  The question:  "Why are there so many shrines and temples here in Japan, darling?"  (Okay . . . I didn't say 'darling' or 'sweetheart' or 'lamb chop' or 'tofu burger' to her.  It's just not my style.)

I don't recall her exact words.  But it went something like: "Have you ever looked around in America? There are churches everywhere you go."

My God!  She's right!

From small and modest . . .



To majestic and sometimes garish . . .



There are churches everywhere!

To make things truly convoluted, while all these churches essentially promote Christian beliefs, there are so many denominations of Christianity, it's impossible to keep track of them all.  Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Church of Christ, 7th Day Adventist, Mormon, Presbyterian, Methodist, Christian Science, on and on.

Then to make things even more disorienting to anyone hailing from the East, in addition to the Christian churches, there are Jewish temples -- also with an assortment of subtle shadings, e.g. Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Humanistic, Hasidic, Haredi, Chabad -- and then in recent times mosques which serve as the spiritual centers for the flocks who adhere to Islam.

What a menagerie!

It makes Japan look like it's just at the early stages of ramping up its institutionalization of theology, though in point of fact, the two dominant religions here -- Buddhism and Shinto -- actually go back respectively about fifteen and thirty centuries.  Maybe Japan can't hold a candle -- or stick of incense -- in sheer numbers to America, or a country like Thailand, which has over 40,000 Buddhist temples alone, but I can speak from experience: There are still plenty of holy sites, temples and shrines here.  Even some Christian churches.

Anyone who's traveled the globe will tell you that this is the case just about everywhere there are people living in some organized fashion. 

The obvious conclusion is that humans like to build places of worship, and to varying degrees visit these places of worship to do whatever it is they do in places of worship.

Yes, there's worship.  But while some people are kowtowing to some statue, idol, entity, ghost, relic, concept, abstraction, surrogate or whatever, others are doing something else. Wishing.  Meditating.  Fantasizing.  Maybe scoping out what others are doing or wearing. What car they drove, what camel they rode in on, who they're with.  These days peaking at their smart phones.  Checking their email.  Their text messages.  Tweeting or looking at their Facebook news feed.  Discreetly taking selfies.

Though it's been quite a while since I attended Catholic services, when I was a boy I had to go to Mass six days a week, thus had more than ample time to observe the devout in their Sunday best or Saturday khakis.  And frankly, even back then I don't remember much real worshipping going on.  Yes, a small faction followed along in their prayer books, mouthing the incantations of the priest.  But the vast majority were marking time, minds elsewhere, checking their watches.  God didn't seem to mind, or notice.  No bolts of lightning ripped thought the ceiling and struck down the inattentive.  God is infinitely patient, I'm told by my Bible-toting friends.  (Tell that to the victims of Sodom and Gomorrah!)

I occasionally attend services here.  Usually at our local shrine which I can walk to in about five minutes.  A celebration typically associated with a holiday.  It's mostly a social thing.

People do pray.  We each make appeals to invisible higher powers, for the things most of us on the planet desire:  Happiness, health, wealth, good fortune, love, maybe marriage, harmonious relationships.  There's that universality again: concerns and values we all seem to share as human beings, regardless of where we have settled down to make a life.  Concerns and values expressed in places which we designate for whatever you want to call that "quiet time" we all seem to embrace for addressing something inside us that is outside of us ... greater than us ... or maybe representing the us we wish we could be.  Whether we worship this other or just like to sidle up to it now and then, it's convenient to have some special designated place -- a temple, a mount, a church, mosque, cathedral -- to set the mood and provide the proper environment.

Here are just a few shrines and temples within easy bike-riding distance of my house.

Yes, houses of worship are everywhere here in Japan too, but at a much more modest level  of 'everywhere' than in the U.S., and most certainly not in the over-abundance I now can see is a defining characteristic of my homeland.

It makes me wonder . . .

What exactly are they trying to prove over there?  Are they maybe trying a little too hard?  To be blunt, it appears all that praying and worshipping isn't really working very well.

Why would I think that?

Americans like to say:  "God is on our side."

Really?  If God truly is, then He must have a very strange sense of humor.

Or a serious mean streak.




[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]



Life In Japan: Shrines and Temples

Life In Japan: New Years

 

It hasn't been that long. 

Of course I remember the typical New Years holiday celebrations in the U.S.!

The shots of Buttery Nipples, Afterburners, and White Gummy Bears, the beer chugging contests, DUIs, the streaking of police patrol cars, mooning at McDonald's drive-thru, the totaled rental cars, 72-hour hangovers, the arrest warrants, getting herpes from kissing some stranger at midnight, the Rose Parade, lying in the den in a puke-soaked Kurt Cobain sweat shirt through 12 hours of football -- Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Toilet Bowl, Oxycontin Bowl.

It's impossible to overstate how different New Years is for me here in Japan.

Granted, there might be some revelry in the big cities like Osaka and Tokyo.  Compared to what typically goes on in America, even these are more like Thursday afternoon bingo in Butte, Montana or octogenarian shuffleboard in Sun City, Florida.

Fasten your seat belts, people, to keep from falling off your chair when you nod off reading this.  A pot of hearty espresso is recommended if you're serious about making it to the end.

New Years Eve day, Masumi, her daughter Azusa, and I, climbed a mountain I've written about twice before.  It looks like a mountain but it's really not that high.  It has steps and trails, so we left the GPS, emergency flares, ropes, and rappelling gear at home.  What I like about it, besides offering a decent work out, a couple hours in nature, and splendid views of the valley which contains most of my home town, Sasayama, is that by bike it's only about five minutes from my house.  It couldn't be more convenient.

This time, we also brought Azusa's Black Labrador puppy too.  We all headed over -- Azusa on foot, Masumi and I on our bikes -- to the trail head, which is situated right in front of a small shrine.  Of course!  Shrines are as ubiquitous here as fire hydrants are in the States.   Anyway, about 45 minutes later, we were on top the small mountain, had a picnic lunch, then returned on the same trail.

It was cool but comfortable, perfect for this relatively easy hike.  However, as we made our way back down, the temperature started quickly dropping.  And continued dropping right into the evening.



Masumi and I had the option of visiting the grounds of a local temple to "ring in the New Year".  They have a No Theater performance, a bonfire, and serve free non-alcoholic sake.  This is a real family affair for all ages.

But we decided it was just too damn cold!

So we stayed home, falling asleep before midnight.  We missed the tofu cannons, whale juggling, sky diving ninjas, and laser holograms of Godzilla eating the Moon.  This was prudent.  We needed to rest up for the next wild and dazzling phase of our extended weekend, Land of the Rising Sun New Years extravaganza, set for next morning.

That would be at べんてん神社 (Benten Shrine), the Shinto shrine which belongs to our village.  We live on the very east end of Sasayama proper, in a village called Noma.  Each village of several in our city of 50,000 or so typically has its own shrine and community center.  Living in Japan is about community life and getting to know your neighbors. 

The motif at the shrine was similar to what we missed at the big temple downtown the previous evening.  There was a small bonfire, free kelp and squid snacks, and sake.  This sake was the real stuff but only dispensed in thimblefuls, so no one exactly got rowdy.

This being a shrine and to the rather meager extent that Japanese indulge in religious services, there was singing.  Mind you, this bore no resemblance to Handel's Hallelujah chorus or a medley of tent revival spirituals.  In fact, what we apparently were singing was the national anthem, which is why my lovely, principled wife was not singing along.  She is categorically and staunchly opposed to nationalism, even superficial celebrations of what has not served humankind very well over its blood-soaked history.  Which explains why I had to burn all of my American flag Hanes boxer shorts right after we got married.

Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I am joking.  All of my American flag undies were long gone decades ago.  I believe they were used as rags to stuff Molotov cocktails at some street protests in Berkeley back in the late 60s.  I can't say for sure.  It's difficult to track where things end up after you drop them in a Salvation Army collection box.

Let me add that Masumi thought the idea of singing the national anthem on this special occasion was very strange, a total anomaly.  Somebody certainly made a very odd choice.  Personally, I found it to be a rather doleful affair, not the stuff of conquest and plunder.

Anyway, here's a very short video clip of my neighbors singing at the shrine.

Okay . . .

Enough is never enough, especially when it comes to wild abandon and revelry.  Sure, we were exhausted from all the whoopee.  But driven by relentless surges of hedonism and the insatiable urge to party like its 2099, as soon as we got home we decided to go to Kaibara, the town both near to where Masumi grew up and where we officially got married.

柏原八幡宮 (Hachiman Shrine) is a beautiful place at the top of a hill.  It maybe takes ten minutes to walk up the stairs.

People step to the front of a shrine, make a contribution, sometimes light incense, ring a very dissonant, clanking bell to get the attention of whoever might be listening, then make an appeal for some improvement in their lives -- new husband, better job, health, long life, happiness, money -- the usual things.  They also write these requests on pieces of paper and tie them to a tree on the grounds.

Whew!  Wild and crazy times here in Japan, eh?  We know how to party!
Personally, I find this all very calming, informal, charming, especially since I mercilessly was subjected to the tortures of the Catholic Mass for way too many years.  What can I say?  Buddhism and Shintoism rock!

I'll end this account on what I find an interesting note.  While there is some god, a spirit entity, associated with each shrine -- our local shrine described above is in dedicated to Benten, goddess of art, music, literature, especially appropriate for Masumi and I -- the Japanese, and most Asian people, especially Buddhists, don't pray to a specific god, saint, angel, virgin.  At least not the way Christians do.  The Catholic Church has a precise org chart for all of its holy representatives.  St. Christopher was assigned assuring safe travel, St. Anthony unobstructed breathing passages.  Then there was the Virgin Mary, who had what could only be called a cult following of her own, rivaling that of Jesus, who of course was the Savior, source of salvation.  Asians just send their prayers out, as Masumi tried to patiently explain to me.  Buddhists are very much into flooding outer space with prayers. 

 

You may find this interesting.  When you visit Buddhist monasteries, you see prayer wheels, hundreds of them, all different sizes, from ones which could fit in a bowling bag to ones that are taller than a human.  Each prayer wheel contains hundreds -- sometimes even thousands! -- of sacred inscriptions from holy Buddhist texts.  Again we have appeals for peace, harmony, long life, etc.  Spinning a prayer wheel, it is claimed, sends these good messages out into the universe, inundating it with the highest spiritual content and aspirations. 

While from what I can tell, it's not working, it's most certainly an admirable enterprise, and so different from the Western framework of a person's relationship with God and his heavenly ecclesiastical staff.  Take a moment and picture those televangelists, furrowed brows sweating, faces bulging with the power of the Lord, yelling:  "You want that new car?  You want your bills paid?  You want that ugly goiter to disappear?  To be able to sing along with Mariah Carey and slam dunk like the Shaq?  Well, just put your hands on your television screen!  I say, put 'em both right here on my face, and FEEL THE POWER OF THE LORD FILL YOUR LIFE with money, success, happiness!  Ask and ye shall receive!  PRAISE GOD!"

Just something to think about next year during half-time of the Rose Bowl.




 [ To see all of the photos, go to author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



Life In Japan: New Years

A Simple Straight-Forward Message for a Complex Convoluted Time

I think there should be eleven Commandments.

The existing ten should all slide down a notch to make room for a new, necessary First Commandment.

1st Commandment:  When it comes to others who embrace beliefs different than yours, thou shalt shut up and mind your own business.

I was raised strict Catholic from the late 1940s until July 1961.  I attended Catholic school for six years.  The indoctrination was mind-boggling -- literally!  I'm not sure where things stand now.  Allegedly the Catholic Church has made some giant leaps forward.  I find the word 'leap' a little hard to swallow.  After all, it took them over 300 years to pardon that wildly insane heretic Galileo for declaring that the sun was at the center of the solar system.  It's too late for his family to sue.

What I was taught, with no room for interpretation or even the slightest bending of the rules, was that Catholics were true believers, everyone else was a pagan and would burn mercilessly in Hell for it.  This obviously included jungle-dwelling savages with the bones through their noses, anyone with slanted eyes, hairy-chested men on horses who raped and pillaged without pause, witches, witch-doctors, probably acupuncturists.  But it also referred to -- brace yourselves -- all Jews and Protestants! 

Talk about being exclusive.  The Catholic Church didn't mess around!

I left that all behind.  I remember the moment well.  Both of my parents were dead.  I was attending a Catholic mass, summer of 1961.  I tried to listen to what the priest was saying.  I looked around.  People were staring at the altar.  The priest droned on, something about the Holy Spirit.  I was 15 and scared to death by a fear of eternal damnation -- something which was pounded into my head day-after-day, year-after-year by both priests and nuns -- afraid as only a thoroughly brainwashed young man can be, to do anything at odds with the Church or God or the Commandments.  But then suddenly, like that perennial bolt of lightning, it hit me:  None of this made any sense to me anymore.  I walked out and never looked back.  To this day, I've never again attended a Catholic mass or Catholic service of any kind, for over 56 years now.

I can look at religion now the way someone might look at photos in their high school year book.  
Hmm . . . French Club . . . Junior Varsity Football Team . . . Mr. Hunter, chemistry.

When three years ago I wrote the song posted at the head of this rambling monograph, I tried to include Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on.  But it's just a song.  There's only so much room without turning the whole thing into a random game of Scrabble.  So . . .

I settled on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and then gave a nod to atheism in one line.

I hear we're now in the throes of a new "Clash of Civilizations".  This refers to a war for hearts, minds, and oil fields, mainly between the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East.  The Jews are in there, since they are allegedly under siege by the Muslims, and they now have a marriage of convenience with the Christians -- which is about as convenient as a marriage between a crocodile and a chicken, and makes about as much sense.

First of all, there's nothing "new" about this epic show down.  Haven't any of these idiotic champions of chaos and carnage shilling for this conflict ever heard of the Crusades?

Second, while I can buy "clash", which seems to be the operating word in just about every interaction between the Western powers and everyone else on the planet, "civilizations" somehow makes me think about "civil" and "civilized".  Neither apply to those participants who have by choice, with full knowledge, by design, with clear intention, have brought the human species and every other living thing on the planet to the brink of extinction.

One has to ask:  Is this the best we as a product of twisted fibers of DNA and RNA can do?  Are we doomed by some kamikaze gene?  Do we periodically have to self-destruct, tear it all down?  Why do we bother with claiming it's about ideologies or religions or politics?

Because it's not.  It's about hatred.  It's about selfishness.  It's about evil, either inherent or manufactured evil.

It's about either the evil we are, the evil we've become, or the evil that we allow to exist in our hearts and our minds.

What's my song about?  It's so simple, so naive, so straightforward, so easy to understand.  Maybe that's what makes it so difficult to take into our hearts, try to weave it in with those strands of DNA and RNA, let it become an antidote to the madness that drives us to reject and demonize others, that allows us to dehumanize those who are different, that feeds our inflated sense of importance, our "exceptionalism", our grandiosity and rabid delusions of superiority, our ultimately self-destructive rejection of our shared humanity.

Happy New Year!  Yes, we're starting a new cycle.  365 days to do what?

Maybe the whole idea is just silly.

Peace be with us . . .

Then again, you decide for yourself.  That's actually the idea.

Assuming you've gotten this far, here are the lyrics to my song, performed in the video by my extremely talented wife and myself, a simple straightforward message for a complex convoluted time.

It’s a very special time of year
For family and friends holiday cheer
For those no longer with us
We shed a tear
A time to share
A time of feast
A time to care
And pray for peace
A time to give to those
Who have the least

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year!

This is the time to start anew
Atheist Christian Muslim Jew
To reach within
And find the love inside of you
Discard the old seek out the new
Reject the false embrace the true
To look ahead decide
To bring out the best in you

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year!

(Chorus – Japanese)
Akemashite
Omedetoo
Peace be with you
Happy New Year!

(Chorus)
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with you
Happy New Year!


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



A Simple Straight-Forward Message for a Complex Convoluted Time

Happy New Year!

1st Verse:
It’s a very special time of year
Family and friends holiday cheer
For those no longer with us
We shed a tear
A time to share
A time of feast
A time to care
And pray for peace
A time to give to those
Who have the least

Chorus:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

2nd Verse:
This is the time to start anew
Atheist Christian Muslim Jew
To reach within
And find the love inside of you
Discard the old seek out the new
Reject the false embrace the true
To look ahead decide
To bring out the best in you

Choruses:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

Akemashite
Omedetoo
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

© Copyright 2014 - Words and music by John Rachel
Dancing Needles Music - ASCAP (All rights reserved.)


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]