250 Palestinians have been killed and 500 wounded in the past 24 hours. A holocaust is happening right before our eyes in Gaza, and world leaders refuse to stop it.

 Mohamad Safa

@mhdksafa

250 Palestinians have been killed and 500 wounded in the past 24 hours. A holocaust is happening right before our eyes in Gaza, and world leaders refuse to stop it.

Howard Thurman: I Will Light Candles this Christmas & The Work of Christmas

From “The Mood of Christmas…”
—by Howard Thurman

I will light Candles this Christmas,
Candles of joy despite all the sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all year long.

The Work of Christmas

—by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Howard Washington Thurman (1899-1981) was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.

Thurman served as dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University from 1932 to 1944 and as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965. In 1944, he co-founded, along with Alfred Fisk, the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States

Thurman was a prolific author, writing twenty books on theology, religion, and philosophy. The most famous of his works, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), deeply influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders, both black and white, of the modern Civil Rights Movement. 

He was the first black dean of a chapel at a majority-white university or college in the United States.  

When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to the United States, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible as a practice worldwide and remarked "It may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world". Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence 

Detail from a stained glass window featuring Howard Thurman at Howard University's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel

All I want for Christmas is a Right of Return FREE PALESTINE

In 1948, in response to the mass displacement and forced exile of the native non-Jewish men, women and children of historic Palestine, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 194, including paragraph 11 which provides, in part, that:

…the [Palestinian] refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.

Resolution 194 endorsed the right of Palestinian refugees to choose whether to repatriate to what is now Israel or to be resettled elsewhere, and codified the accepted principles of customary international law. It has been reaffirmed by the General Assembly every year since its adoption.

The right of return for all refugees also is well-established under other international law, including:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948): “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” (Art. 13(2)).

A mural painted of Wael Dahdouh - Binnish, Idlib province, Syria

Spelling it out... a perfect perch for the Dove of Peace

Bethlehem’s bombed-out nativity sculpture sends a powerful message

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VBNVBGml_Q

This year, Bethlehem is sombre and quiet.

There is no Christmas tree and there are no holiday lights or tourists to see them. Instead, the city of Jesus’s birth – which is in the middle of a war zone – is marking Christmas with a powerful and poignant message: solidarity with Palestine. 

The Holy Family Cave is a sculpture [by Tariq Salsa https://tariqsalsa.info/the-holy-family-the-first-palestinian-refugee-family/ ] that depicts a harrowing tableau: a bombed-out version of the traditional nativity cave, which many Christians traditionally believe is where Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  It is the site of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. 

 Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim reports from Bethlehem.  Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Follow us on Twitter:   / ajenglish   Find us on Facebook:   / aljazeera  

Bethlehem Pastor Rev Munther Isaac criticises Western hypocrisy and Church complicity in Gaza crisis

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l75yhhAAPt0

“If you fail to call this a genocide that is on you, it is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.” 

In his address at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem on 23 December, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac expressed deep outrage over the global silence and inaction towards the Gaza crisis. 

Isaac highlighted the tragic loss of life, including over 9,000 children, and the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians. 

He strongly criticised the Western world for its hypocrisy and racism and particularly denounced the church's complicity in the crisis, stating: 

“We are outraged by the complicity of the church.” 

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Basilica of the Nativity in Nazareth has a patinated bronze statue of St Joseph with shiny knees from the affection people have show him through the years #Palestine

St Joseph always gets a bit short-changed in the memory of Christians. Thankfully at the Basilica of the Nativity in Nazareth, space is made to remember his honourable devotion. In this bronze statue, Joseph’s knees are rubbed shiny by the affection people show him. Often missed is the image of an angel carved into the rear of the statue. Joseph had his own annunciation and this indicated the way he should approach the challenge of Mary’s suprise pregnancy.

 

“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; he named him Jesus.’” 

St.George's College Jerusalem

"Hope” by Palestinian artist, Sliman Mansour

"Hope” by Palestinian artist, Sliman Mansour

This icon is placed over the altar above the place of Jesus’s birth on the Feast of the Incarnation, at the place of the birth of the Christ-child in the Basilica of the Nativity, Bethlehem.

St.George's College Jerusalem

Our Advent Calendar concludes at the place of the birth of the Christ-child in the Basilica of the Nativity, Bethlehem. 

This icon is placed over the altar above the place of Jesus’s birth on the Feast of the Incarnation. 

And so we come also to worship the one born to be Messiah. 

As we celebrate this Christmas in the midst of war and division, we remember all those who suffer the impact of the war, the hostages and their families, and especially the innocent in Gaza whose suffering knows no bounds. We pray that the Christ-child who comes as the Prince of Peace will lead us into that peace with justice for which he was born, which he lived and preached and for which he died. 

At St George’s College we send this with prayers for the blessings of Christmas to be with you all.

I’m a Palestinian Christian in Gaza. I want peace—for my homeland and my family.

 Rami Aljelda 

December 20, 2023

"My dream is a place where I can live and work, where my wife is working, and my children can be living in a peaceful environment where there is no violence "

 

Rami, his wife Maryan, and their daughter Kylie on the day his daughter was baptized, which occurred in late October while they were sheltering in Greek Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrius.

I have been living in Gaza my whole life but, honestly, I can barely remember the details of my life before two months ago. So much has changed—and it was already a year of major change in my personal life.
 
In May of 2022 I married my wife, Maryan. Over the past year, we designed and built our house together, inch by inch. Maryan chose the color of the curtains, the furniture. We did everything together, going here and there, to restaurants, to people’s homes. We had a life. We had community. And in June of this year, we had a daughter.
 
Even though we have lived through other conflicts before, this is the first one that has happened since I married and had a child. It is totally different. I don’t know how to describe it, but with everything that happens to me, I always think about my wife and my daughter, Kylie. It is not like before. I have responsibility as a new father.

 

I’m a Palestinian Christian living in Gaza. We have a small community of Christians here—about 900 people out of two million. We all know one another because we are all one community. Of course, we have had bad times before, with smaller escalations happening. But we were able to overcome them. We didn’t have to leave our homes. This time, we knew it would not be the same. Within two days of the start of the conflict, without any hesitation, my family went to St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church. We have lived in the church for nearly two months. I can say we are “living” in the church—not staying or taking shelter—because it’s really like we are living here... READ MORE

 https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/12/20/christian-gaza-wartime-church-community-246754

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES or quotes or watch videos IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

Dear Santa