Because Jesus Directed His Followers to Bring A Tree Inside

as the common experience goes, so goes the health of the society. So much for tolerance, so much for trying to reach understanding. When the minority has the ability to shut down the majority we as a nation and as a culture are circling the bowl. When there is ZERO reverence for long held traditions we are circling the bowl.

Too bad the wingnuts had to be so fanatical, because of lot of that claimed by the Christian Right has been right on point.

That is just crazy!

This seems a road too far to me, but I might get it if little angels were hanging on the tree.. or a giant creche were underneath. Both seem unlikely. Most here know I'm a long time ex-believer, but even now I enjoy trees at the holidays. I've morphed to think of them as solstice indicators. I'm not all ga ga about solstice either, but I think of it as a neutral phenomenon.
But I'll listen to arguments on the no-tree side and see if I can wrap my mind around them.

I think of the move as defensive un-warming of a library in December, and I bet the library person will get complaints in the other direction too. Or maybe not.

I've childhood mems of the tree in Marshall Field's in Chicago - I swear it went up seven stories. Probably not one tree alone or even seven stories, but I know it reached the seventh floor. It just plain brought happiness to my little self, a visceral reaction I'll put outside of religion.

To clarify, or maybe to obscure, I'm not for positioning of gestures of religion in publicly owned spaces.......... except when I make exceptions. I say that with self awareness of the contradiction, so I'll try to look at it.

I don't like the backing of any religion by those in charge of public spaces; carving one religion's bits in granite, for example, over a judicial building for all. Or prayers to the christian god before design review meetings. I don't want to see - for aesthetic as well as philosophic reasons - a continuous play/display of various religions or anti religions in our parks. But I'm a little squidgey on some specifics.

I've had a soft spot for a statue of St. Monica in Santa Monica, long after I had no interest in her as a saint. It was at the end of Wilshire Blvd., which traverses a fair part of LA, positioned across the street in Palisades Park, which parallels the Pacific Ocean. As I remember, it was a cool statue.
Probably gone by now.

As a person with a license for park design, public space design, bla bla, I think of public spaces, indoor or out, as a mix of a good space arrangement, with room for the spontaneous life of the city to happen in it. So.. with, say, Jane Jacobs, I don't want to see all sign of human energy, creativity, play.. obliterated for spareness. If that transitory ebullience has some side religious connotation, I might not be bothered.. if it were the main thing, I probably would be.

Back to the library - wondering what's in that entry space the rest of the year.

I don't get it. What's a fir tree got to do with Christianity? The Winter solstice (what the acient Romans called the Saturnalia) was celebrated with lights and yule logs and evergreen trees decorating the homestead long before the new-fangled religion from across the Medierranean started to creep across Europe. An evergreen in the parlor has exactly zero to do with any Christian beliefs.

That's quite easy to explain, Andrew: the old German folk song "O fir tree, o fir tre, how green are your leaves ..." didn't make sense to some American "translators" and so it became "O Christmas tree ..."

(Seriously, this song was first published 1812 in this region, a [much older] Westphalian folk song:

O Dannebom, o Dannebom,
du drägst 'ne grönen Twig,
den Winter, den Sommer,
dat doert de leve Tid.

'Worum schold ich nich grönen,
da ich noch grönen kann?
Ick hebb nich Vader un Moder,
de mi versorgen kann.

'Un de mi kann versorgen,
dat is de leve Gott,
de leet mi wassen und grönen .


Nothing to do with Christmas at all.)

Did you know, Walter, that the melody of O Tannenbaum is the melody used by the State of Maryland as the setting for that state's anthem "O Maryland my Maryland"?

It does sound like a major distraction in the library, especially with final exams coming, and term papers due. Do librarians still say "Shhhh!"?, or would that violate someone's right to self expression?

Re-reading your version, though, in the Midle German Westhpalian dialect, it seems they must have sang it to a different melody than the familiar

Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum
Wie gruen sind deine Blatter.

bear wrote :



aren't poinsettas considered "christian" symbols ?
perhaps they'll have to go too ?

i imagine that deep down i'd be considered intolerant because i enjoy the "tannenbaum" season .
i also enjoy eating matzo-balls , lamb and food that others might consider "religious" symbols - perhaps we'll have to do away with all those things .

("christmas" music in shopping areas tends to annoy me and wouldn't mind having that custom outlawed !)

i don't consider myself religiously affiliated with anything (to the best of my knowledge) , but i can admire a church , a temple , a mosque - and the various symbols of religions .
i must be totally confused .
hbg

http://protestantism.suite101.com/article.cfm/poinsettia_christmas_plant

yep, them things have to go........

hawk wrote :



if you have a moment to spare would you mind notifying mrs h of your order ?
thanks much !
btw she also likes to light a candle at this time of the year : got to go or permissable as "heat source" ?
hbg

I know about 'O Maryland'. The melody of the Westphalian song was and is the very same as it is today.

Actually, the song seems to go back to various other folk songs (some student songs, some as folk songs as early as 15th century), but with a different melody.

I think, most (music) historians agree that the Haxthausen version ("O Tannenbaum" in High German translated from the Westphalian, 1820) is the first with text and melody as of today.

I have friends in Japan, who told me that Japaneese have Christmas trees simply because it is so nice. Here is a three including the Star of Bethlehem

http://www.japan-hopper.com/wp-content/photos/Xmas3.jpg

I Muslim friend of mine told me that in Turkey at least in some homes they have Christmas trees simply because it is so nice.
Why are we not allowed to have them in our country where we have had them for a long time, when other countries where a Christian Christmas is not even celebrated can have them.

Dunno, i don't feel strongly about this one way or another. Christmas trees are a relatively new addition (19th century at best, though older in Germany) to the Christian rites and are taken on from older pagan rites, true. It's a public tradition, true.
But they are also most definitely associated with Christianity today in most people's minds. I can see how that might be a bit in-your-face if you don't happen to celebrate Christmas... I would prefer if other religions' holidays got more public recognition. Would be more fun than pushing everything away...but that might get tricky, too. And costly. I tend to agree that public institutions should not fund religious festivities. Churches/mosques/temples/associations/whathaveyou should.
Bottom line is, don't care about this one much. Keep it or let it go, all blue potatoes to me.

North Carolina to me is basically just drive-through country; the only part of it I ever care to see is the part of I-95 which runs through it.

I don't care, too.

The first -still existing- source for a fir tree in a church is from 1539, Strasbourg Cathedral. In private house, it became a custom from 1600 onwards (first -still existing- source from 1605.)

However, all those trees weren't erected before Christmas - hence "Christmas" tree.
In the time before Christmas - Advent - we've Advent wreaths, in towns, private houses and churches.
Tradition, be it heathen Germanic or Christian.

Moreover, from wiki:


...but does that matter? public perceptions always win over academic "truths".

In my mind, the Christmas tree became omnipresent with Christmas, after the U.S. spread its culture world-wide. And, the reason the Christmas tree became part of the U.S. culture, I believe, is because German-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the U.S. And, let us not forget that German-Americans have been good wage earners since they arrived in the U.S., and therefore it just might have been a way to induce them to buy more in stores, if every store had a Christmas tree. Perhaps, a bit of pandering to good customers.

Once in a while you actually make good sense, Foofie.

This isn't one of those times.