The living light of Christmas and COVID-19
May the living light and the healing peace of Christmas 2020 raise up the peoples of this unique and precious world which is our home, and may the deadly COVID-19 viral pandemic which now afflicts all humanity be appeased and vanquished.
This Blessing Way column now invokes the power of the divine light of the most high in this sacred time as a ‘salvific disinfectant’ against the virulent plague, which is decimating many hundreds of thousands of people from every rank and file and class in every part and region on earth. Our sincere prayers and condolences go out to the victims of the virus everywhere including Taos and el norte and beyond.
The situation reminds of the desperate situation encountered by humanity as imagined in the book, “War Of The Worlds” by H.G. Wells, where entities of another planet (Mars) launched an all-out attack/invasion upon our earth.
From far away our world is a very small bluish planet in the vast black space, a tiny object in the universe like the other planets, with nothing especially notable about it from way out there.
But it is alive and flourishing with all manner of living things – unlike any other world in the infinite universe at least so far as is now known. Its origin is still a complete mystery. And the genesis of its multitudinous interdependent and integrated life forms and species is equally mysterious, except for the ancient stories handed down, the ‘myths’ and religious cosmologies that are at least tens of thousands of years old, as well as other supernatural accounts and traditions.
There is clear evidence and knowledge about great civilizations and cities which thrived many thousands of years ago, and about their cultures and their belief systems and religions; and about how many of them came to ruinous destruction in the end from war and conquest and religious conflicts, and diseases.
Our present era is similar, as many hundreds of millions of people are in the midst of the observances and celebrations of Christmas which for over 2,000 years, for believers, marks the nativity of the divine light of the world named Emmanuel, the Christ Messiah who is considered the King of Peace, while many nations rage on in war and slaughter, even though they claim to be the children of the same god.
And now, even in this sacred time of celebrations of the light, every person and nation, whether friend or foe, is equally under the indiscriminate attack by the invisible viral entity. There is a cosmic irony in these circumstances, in that people all around our unique blue planet Earth consider this time to be holy and spiritually potent, while at the same time many are ceaselessly engaged in the physical and spiritual destruction of the ‘others,’ while at the same time they and all others are under the common lethal peril.
Somebody or something viewing our unique living planet Earth from way out there might reasonably ask, “What is going on there? Can’t the denizens of that precious world understand the travesties they inflict upon and among themselves, and the dangers they unleash against and amongst all of them together?”
For thousands of years many believe that there is a mystery and even holiness in the order of all that exists; and that there is a divine or supernatural entity, YHWH the Most High, which is the creator and author of all order. Many believe in the divine birth of the one known as the Christ Messiah, Yeshua, whose nativity is observed and celebrated on Christmas Day as the light of peace to the world and who can assuage even the fiercest natural, supernatural and spiritual forces and afflictions.
The nativity of Yeshua, Jesus, who is acknowledged as, and also denied as, the Christ Messiah of the human race, has had a tremendous and transformative effect on humanity. Christians believe the words of Jesus that, “Before Abraham was, I am!” And that he is Emmanuel, the Most High, with humankind. Many, including Norteños, believe that the birth of the Christ is also that of the divine light and of the love of the most high, into humankind, and that Christmas is also the birth of hope for “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward All.” And for these present times, that the virus in our midst be vanquished!