Rosemead Kiwanis Club
"Serving the Community Since 1945"
FAX OF
LIFE
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Rosemead Kiwanis Club "Serving the Community Since 1945" |
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FAX OF LIFE
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The Fax of Life
A weekly inspiration, courtesy of the Kiwanis Club of Scott's Valley
November 25, 2007 Volume 13, Number 9
Yule Rush
The Christmas season has officially
begun and I love this reminder about how easy it is to get caught up in the
frenzy. If you have no clue who Mork was, this would be a good time to
"connect" with someone who was young when Robin Williams was young. Or just
Google "Mork and Mindy."
If an alien from another planet were to drop in on America around December 22, he would find himself in another world. Not only would it be different from his own, but it would be substantially different from our own.
A magical transformation comes over our country sometime in the late fall, right after Thanksgiving... or Halloween... or Labor Day. (Will the day ever come when the fireworks stands will begin selling Christmas trees, just to avoid the rush?)
Well, anyway, if such an alien were to attempt to report on the story behind all this December effort, it might go like this:
Mork, calling Orson. Mork, calling Orson. Hello, Orson?
Orson, they have this amazing festival down here that everybody getsinto, but especially the stores and shopping malls... What's that?
Oh, well, malls are sort of an enclosed walkway where you can go and
meet your friends and smell cookies baking and buy ice cream cones to
spill on the clothes in the stores. They're the same in every city... I think
there's an enormous computer somewhere that spits them out and drops
them in the suburbs, right in the middle of a sea of automobiles that can't
move. They got them in there somehow, but there's no way to get in any
more.
Oh yes, the festival. Well, it's all about a little boy with a drum, and he's
born in a sleigh, in some straw, right next to some chestnuts roasting on
an open fire...
Yes, it is a bit dangerous, but its okay because he is guarded by this
enormous fat man in a red suit named Round John Virgin, standing by a
tree with a partridge it in, drinking something called Wassail...
No I'm not exactly sure what it is, and nobody here can tell me. But there's
a lady kneeling nearby with a light over her head, and a couple of sheep
and a donkey and a camel and this really strange deer with a red electric
nose, and a dog sleeping on top of his doghouse while a crotchety old man
is hoisting this crippled boy on his shoulder who is holding a turkey by
the neck and saying, "God bless us everyone!"
Yeah, the little boy says that, not the Turkey! Well, anyway, after they sing
a while they take all these packages and wrap them up in paper which they
then take right off again, and the little kids play with the paper and the older
kids say, "Is that all?" and the fathers sit in front of the picture-box and the mothers collapse on a chair.
The festival concludes sixty days later with an observance called "Visa
Card Day" when everybody becomes really serious, religious and worshipful. Millions of people open envelopes and say, "Whaaaaaat!"
Yeah, its really a lot of fun. We ought to introduce it up there on Ork. Well, that's all. NANU, NANU!
Larray Ballenger, Pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in Fresno, California
Kiwanis is a global organization of volunteers dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time.
The Kiwanis Club of Scott's Valley is a community service club and meets at the Heavenly Café in Scott's Valley on Wednesdays at 7 am. You are welcome to join us anytime.
We do not charge anyone for receiving the "Fax;" however. if you have been encouraged in any way by the message, pass it on by saying something encouraging to someone else during the week.
Neither the Scott's Valley or Rosemead Kiwanis Club makes any representations as to the accuracy of words or actions attributed to named individuals; material selected for the Fax of Life comes from a variety of sources and is chosen based on its inspirational value as given.