Lovely Christmas

 I always enjoy a sleep over after celebrating Christmas with family in the middle of nowhere.

This time I stopped on the way home to celebrate mass at Our Lady of Grace, on Yonge Street,   South of New Market.  It's a beautiful church and I recognized the Pastor from watching daily mass on TV.  I like his sermons.  This Christmas  Day however, was amazing.  The Bishop was there from Toronto and after the routine blessings after mass, he showered us with Life Time Blessings.  What a gift.  We are lucky to live in a country where being Christian is safe.  But we need to keep it safe for all religions.  Our Jewish community was hit once again and this needs to be taken much more seriously from all levels of government.  There are Extremists targeting us as a country as well as other Western Countries.  We need to understand that ISIS is dangerous and needs to be dealt with.  What happened in Australia was horrible and I was glad that it was a Muslim who saved so many people because all too often just regular Muslims who love and want to be genuine are targeted as well.  We need to understand that all people deserve to practice their religion and that there are extremists at different levels in all religions.  We need to understand that there is a difference in culture as well which affect the religions.  Some cannot distinguish between culture and religion.  The Muslim religion states that modesty should be depicted by both men and women.  It does not state that women should have their hair covered as well as their entire bodies.  Canada is a free country and needs to stay that way.  We too often accept others and their cultures which is contrary to ours in the mistaken notion that it is religion rather than culture.  People can wear what they want which should not be enforced upon them.  Children here are not property.  We cannot have a society that is not tolerant of others, but we also have to recognize what our values are and to not be ashamed to fight for our rights in a civilized manner.  We need to start teaching all organized world religions in schools by eduators who have degrees with sufficient knowledge in the topics without biases.  We need to have students share their own views to learn to be able to do so without violence, but with a thirst for knowledge and respect.  

I am still in the Christmas spirit.  I just want to let you know that I have not forgotten you.  What do you think?