The Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough

A few weeks ago, I caught a television news story advising where to send letters to Santa. It promised that, if children use this special address, their letters would be answered. It made me wonder who ‘helps’ Santa with this huge task. Who pays for all the postage? And, what does Santa reply? Certainly not with assurances that all requests will be honoured?

Letters to Santa are rather like petitionary prayers, prayers that begin with “please” and often contain promises of good behaviour. The holiday season encourages us to wish and to dream, to ‘be good’ in hopes that we will get whatever it is we need. Do we expect these prayers and letters to be answered?

Well, this week I received a letter from Jesus. It must be real because it came to my email address and clearly claimed to have come from the Lord himself. In it, Jesus was letting off steam about some things that bother him about how we do Christmas.

Apparently he thinks there are better ways to celebrate his birthday than frantically shopping for gifts no one needs. Apparently he thinks that visiting the lonely, smiling at store clerks, and practicing acts of forgiveness would be more appropriate. He writes that we ought to put into practice what we believe rather than complaining about how others aren’t living their faith. Essentially he’s saying that we should quit asking for someone else to give us stuff or to fix the things we don’t like. Instead, he writes, we should simply spend time with others, and tell them we love them.

By Jove, Virginia, maybe Jesus was a Unitarian!
In the spirit of this season of light,

Julie