Now Christmas begins

I know that Christmas is not yet over. Today is only the 6th day of the Octave. We are off to spend the New Year weekend away with family and I may not have access to Dulverton Ramblings for a few days. Hence today's piece.

For most people Christmas will be regarded as over now and each person will have an average of 110lbs of rubbish to dispose of - the equivalent of nine average sized turkeys or more than 60 loaves of bread. Christmas results in around three million tons of waste, which is enough to fill 400,000 double decker buses, and equates to around a tenth of all domestic waste generated in a year. The potential for extra waste is considerable given the shopping list for an average Christmas. This includes, in an average year in England, 15000 tons of Brussels sprouts, equivalent in weight to 37 jumbo jets and 175 million mince pies, nearly 600 times the height of Everest.

More than half this waste could be recycled. Take some of it back to the supermarket when you return for more. Take your Christmas cards to recycling bins in high street shops. Save wrapping paper for reuse. Use the doorstep collection schemes which are provided for paper, card, glass and metal cans. It would be possible in Britain to save greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking 3.5 million cars off the road.

We not only want to clear up our post Christmas mess in a positive way. We want to commit ourselves to the real work of Christmas which begins when the festivities end.

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with the flocks, then the work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost.
To heal those broken in spirit.
To feed the hungry.
To release the oppressed.
To rebuild the nations.
To bring peace among all peoples.
To make a little music with the heart....
And to radiate the Light of Christ, every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.

The above lines are by Howard Thurman. Howard Thurman (born 1900 in Daytona Beach, Florida - April 10, 1981 in Daytona Beach, Florida) was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader.
In 1923, Howard Thurman graduated from Morehouse College as valedictorian. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925, after completing his study at the Colgate Rochester Theological Seminary (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School). He then decided to pursue further study as special student of philosophy in residence at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, a noted Quaker philosopher and mystic.
He served as dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in the District of Columbia from 1932-1944. He later became the first Black dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University(1953-1965).
Thurman traveled broadly, heading Christian missions and meeting with world figures like Mahatma Gandhi. When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to America, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible worldwide and suggested some American Black men would succeed where he had failed.
In 1944 Thurman left his prestigious tenured position at Howard to help the Fellowship of Reconciliation establish the first racially integrated, intercultural church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, California.
After leaving Marsh Chapel in 1965, Thurman continued his ministry as director of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust in San Francisco until his death in 1981.
Thurman was the author of 20 books of ethical and cultural criticism. The most famous of his works, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), deeply influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the modern Civil Rights Movement. (Thurman was in fact a classmate and friend of Martin Luther King Sr at Morehouse College. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Thurman while he attended Boston University and Thurman in turn mentored his former classmate's son and his friends).
Boston University currently houses the Howard Thurman Papers and the Sue Bailey Thurman Papers. However, recently the Howard Thurman Papers were secured by Morehouse College that they may be properly catalogued and presented.
Ebony magazine called Thurman one of the 50 most important figures in African American history, and Life rated him among the 12 best preachers in the nation.
Thurman was married twice. He had two children, Olive Thurman by his first wife, Kate Kelly Thurman (d. 1930 of tuberculosis) and Anne Spencer Thurman by his second wife, Sue Bailey Thurman.
A documentary of his life and work is currently being produced by an independent filmmaker.