What’s the true meaning of Christmas?

The David Jones Christmas display
is unusually 'biblical'

My bus trip to the office each morning is seldom exciting or interesting.

In fact, it endlessly frustrates me, mostly concerning the traffic jams on Elizabeth St.

Normally I’m in a vague daze, ignoring most of my surrounds, until I get into the office and grab a coffee from the downstairs café.

However, about a month ago, I was awoken from my stupor by the unmistakable tones of Christmas Carols.

The source was a ‘Christmas display’ in the windows of department store, David Jones.

Four of the store’s windows contained puppets acting out parts of the nativity accompanied by four Christmas carols with the words of the carols adoring the window panes.

Furthermore, they had a bible verse painted onto one of the windows.

This completely blew me away. Was a department store really linking ‘Christmas’ to ‘The Bible’??

Right there, that statement is all you need to know about Christmas in Australia.

While the word ‘Christ’ may be in the title, I dare say, to most Australians, Jesus is merely an ‘optional extra’ each Christmas.

People everywhere seem to be trying to find any explanation of the so-called true meaning of Christmas other than ‘Jesus’ birth’.

I even conducted an experiment. I asked someone the other day (who I know quite well) what they thought the true meaning of Christmas was. Their answer: “Probably something like family, sharing, community, love and all that.”

Not a ‘Jesus’ in sight.

I don’t enjoy getting all ‘preachy’, ‘holier than thou’, or ‘tele-evangelical’, but I do want to say, for the record, that the reason we celebrate Christmas in Australia is because, around 2,000 years ago, the Son of God was born in a manger in Bethlehem.

Boom. Right there. There it is.

The problem is: I reckon people in Australia don’t seem to want to hear about Jesus. Let me illustrate.

My housemate, Tim, goes to a church in southern Sydney and, by all accounts, it’s a pretty good one.

The other day, the Pastor of this church was interviewed by morning TV show, Sunrise.

Sunrise was filming a story on a group of Christians who pray in the city each Friday. As part of the story, they interviewed Tim’s Pastor who proceeded to say the name ‘Jesus’ every few seconds.

At one point, the interviewer stopped the interview and said something along the lines of: “You’re saying Jesus a bit too much. Can you please cut it down a little?”

In the reporter’s mind – helping people feel included is a good thing. Talking about Jesus, though… well, that’s not so good.

It’s a little ironic that this story was broadcast around Christmastime, yet they didn’t want the name, Jesus, mentioned too often. It’s a little like wanting to limit the number of times you say ‘Germany’ when discussing the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis: a little silly.

So, people of Earth, the true meaning of Christmas is all about Jesus. Or, as Caroline Overington so magnificently put it on Twitter:

1: Yo, all you `happy holidayers': Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. That is all.

2: Again, for the knuckleheads: you're getting a holiday because it's Christmas - the celebration of the birth of Christ.

3: You don't have to celebrate it. You don't even have to believe it. But that's why you're getting it. #Christmas.

Bingo.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

It's my way or the highway

Too many people reckon
it's their way or the highway

Last week I wrote about business and morality.


We’ve seen people from all walks off like cast aspersions on businesses for not taking courses of action which they believe are morally ‘right’.


However, it’s not confined to the business realm which people are firing off bullets from their ‘moral sidearms’. Rather, a multitude of societal facets is causing people to spill their soy lattes.


I reckon this is because people are starting to view the world through an increasingly black or white lens. To many people, it’s their way or the highway.


In fact, it’s not even their steadfast commitment to their own conclusions which is most concerning. It’s the arrogance (yes, I realise I’m being arrogant by calling others arrogant. Sue me) of not only claiming that their conclusions are ‘right’, but that anyone who disagrees with them is ‘wrong’, or in some cases, not just wrong, but ‘evil’.


Take the recent example of same-sex marriage.


At the Federal Labor party’s recent conference, a motion was passed in favour of allowing a conscience vote on any private members’ movement of a bill in favour of same sex marriage.


This followed a heated and at times spiteful debate where party delegates tried to convince the masses that their point of view was ‘right’.


On the same sex marriage side, many of the protestations focused on the notion of equality. That by not allowing same sex couples to marry it was denying them inalienable human rights and dignity afforded to heterosexual couples.


On the other side, delegates spoke, largely from religious convictions, against same sex marriage. Speakers from both sides of the debate were booed, hissed, insulted, and heckled from the audience as delegates attempted to peacefully put forward their point of view.


For those for same sex marriage, cries of "it's against natural law" were directed towards speakers.


For those against, cries of “bigot”, “intolerant” and “evil” were heard from the stands.


This led one of the delegates, Deb O'Neill, to say:


“Opponents of gay marriage are attacked as bigoted. Those attitudes are bigoted.”


Essentially, she was making the claim that, simply because she held a different point of view, it did not categorically mean her view was, wrong or evil. The reality is, she just had a different point of view.


Former Democrat Senator, Natasha Stott-Despoja said it well on The Punch recently when she wrote:


“What bothers me is not necessarily people who have an opposing view - that’s democracy - but hypocrisy when politicians vote against what they believe in.”


And this (finally) is my point. Simply because someone disagrees with you does not necessarily make them ‘wrong’ and certainly not ‘evil’. You can hold whatever views you like, but it does not preclude someone from holding views of their own.


If someone has a different opinion to you – there could well be a very good reason why they hold that view.


So next time you’re tempted to belittle someone simply because they disagree with you – take a breath. Have a think.


Because your position may not be as foolproof as you think it is. And you may just have to get over yourself.

Business and morality - an unlikely combination?

The Big Four have been a little money-hungry lately

A few years ago I did one of those personality type indicators, called Myers-Briggs.

Apparently, if you answer about 150 questions, these two theorists can extrapolate what your personality is like.

I emerged as an ENFJ.

Take note of the third one – F stands for feeling. Apparently you can be a ‘feeler’ or a ‘thinker’. The example the course leader gave was this: Let’s say you’re the CEO of a company and you need to fire someone. How do you decide who gets fired?”

The feelers embarked on a long process of trying to work out which employers didn’t have a family, who would be most financially affected, who would be the least disenfranchised about the decision etc.

The thinkers, on the other hand, were fairly ruthless. They wondered who had been underperforming from a business perspective and, regardless of their life situation, they would be the one who was fired.

You see, the thinkers approached the situation purely by examining the cold hard business realities. They judged that the business needed to remain profitable so the biggest barrier to that would be cut loose. On the other hand, the feelers tried to put themselves in the person’s shoes and sensed what they might be feeling.

It’s a fascinating subject of study because a question I’ve been pondering more and more lately is, how much should we expect businesses to behave in a morally ‘right’ manner.

The best example of this at the moment is Australian Big Four banks refusing to pass on a cut in the official cash rate by the Reserve Bank (As this column went to press, ANZ and NAB were the only two 'big banks' to have dropped their interest rates, but only after a fair bit of public backlash).

The front page of several Australian newspapers called, aggressively, on the banks to ‘do the right thing’ and lower their rates.

The problem here is, the banks are under no obligation whatsoever to do this. They’ve all made a calculated gamble that by not lowering their rates, they’re not putting themselves in danger of losing customers and ensuring they remain profitable.

Isn’t this what any good CEO would do? Surely the first pledge of allegiance a CEO makes is to do the best by their business rather than by the family of four in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Yet so much media commentary has talked up the fact that the banks are ‘heartless’, and don’t understand the cost of living pressures working families are experiencing.

What I find interesting is that, (and I’m speaking very generally here) for the most part, the people who are most outspoken about how evil the banks are, come from backgrounds with no executive business experience. While those who quietly endorse the banks, more often than not, come from executive positions.

I’m not saying one position is right and the other is wrong. Rather, it’s fascinating to see how people with different life experiences cast a moral judgement over the business decisions of people who, often, they’ll never have met.

I might pick this up next week. In the past few weeks we’ve seen societies all over the world cast morally black or white judgements over all sorts of decisions (pokies reform, same sex marriage, climate change etc.) and I’m getting a little frustrated by it.

So stay tuned for next Friday’s column.

When the justice system fails

Injustice - it's pretty annoying

I’m a man with many opinions. I also talk a lot.


Some would call this a perfect storm. Ask me what I think about something and there’s a high chance you’ll get a fairly black or white reply.


In fact, it’s very seldom indeed that you’ll find me without a lot to say.


Well, will wonders never cease? Earlier this week I was, mildly, flabbergasted.


Some background: In 2009, a former Tasmanian politician had a sexual relationship with and took naked photographs of a 12-year-old girl.


Yep – that’s disgusting. But it didn’t end there. The politician also had hundreds of images of children as young as eight-years-old on his personal computer.


In many people’s eyes, this seems to be an open and shut case. They guy is clearly perverted and should be removed from society to ensure the safety of local children.


Keep in mind that none of the above facts are ‘in dispute’. Rather they are 100% factually correct.


However, common sense, it seems, gave way on this occasion. The judge handed down a 10 month suspended prison sentence to the politician.


In other words, as long as he ‘behaved well’ for the next two years, he was a free man.


What the hell?


The judge’s ruling was based on the fact that the accused was undergoing treatment for Parkinson’s disease. In reporting on the trial, The Australian newspaper wrote:


The dominant factor" in Martin’s sentencing was that the former MP had been suffering hyper-sexuality caused by medication for Parkinson's disease. The judge concluded there was a "direct causal link" between this dopamine agonist medication and Martin's offences.


In other words, his medication made him do it.


That’s a pretty big call. Medication for Parkinson’s disease made this man so sexually aggressive that, in the judge’s opinion, it excused him taking advantage of a 12-year-old girl and possessing child pornography.


I’m sorry, but that is messed up.


What kind of precedent does this set for future legal cases? Essentially it opens the door for anyone to have some prescription drugs and ‘go nuts’, committing child molestation or pornography crimes, confident in the potential for them to walk free at the end, avoiding the arms of the law.


I have a lot of friends, and many of them are lawyers. They’re all very intelligent folk who usually work long hours and think very carefully about what they do each day.


But I’d have to look myself in the mirror very carefully if I was a defending lawyer for the accused in the above example.


Surely this is an example of legal defences over-stepping their mark?


Or, am I being too opinionated? Should I be more open-minded? Did this man really have absolute zero control over what he was doing, and zero realisation that having sexual relations with a 12-year-old and possessing child porn was wrong?


I could be wrong, but I seriously hope I’m not.


What this man did was WAY wrong. And him walking free does not sit well with me.