“The most likely theory is that Christmas trees started with medieval plays. Dramas depicting biblical themes began as part of the church’s worship, but by the late Middle Ages, they had become rowdy, imaginative performances dominated by laypeople and taking place in the open air. The plays celebrating the Nativity were linked to the story of creation—in part because Christmas Eve was also considered the feast day of Adam and Eve. Thus, as part of the play for that day, the Garden of Eden was symbolized by a “paradise tree” hung with fruit.” “These plays were banned in many places in the 16th century, and people perhaps began to set up “paradise trees” in their homes to compensate for the public celebration they could no longer enjoy. The earliest Christmas trees (or evergreen branches) used in homes were referred to as “paradises.” They were often hung with round…
Tag: <span>Savior</span>
Denial is “refusing to admit into awareness that which comes from one’s environment—e.g., what others say or do.” Job did this in Job 3. Repression is “the exclusion from awareness of troubling psychic contents.” Both definitions are from C.W. McLemore. Denial shuts out the outside; repression, what comes from within. Our fellow griever, Job, resorted to all defenses and later exposed an outward armor, in the face of God Himself. “Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? I call Job’s lament, “the exaltation of futility.” “For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest.” Job 3:13-15 What was happening with Job? Every unconscious mechanism for the preservation of life seemed to effect its cover-up all at once, including a tough exteriored religious-duty filled response; but Job’s true colors shown brighter in the ongoing.…