Our lovely Smith Mountain Lake community is all ablaze with the glitter and charm that tells us Christmas is here. Most of us love this time of year for so many reasons, it’s hard to list them all.
We love the presents and the lights and the anticipation. We love the good food and the family visits and the parties. And all of those are enjoyable and should be things we look forward to.
But we should not bury our heads in the sand. Christmas may also be one of the few remaining nationally celebrated symbols of the Christian faith. Who would have ever dreamed that a simple day set aside to honor God’s coming to give this world hope, would one day be a focal point of political strife?
I do not like the commercial end of Christmas and our family does not make a big deal of anything except spending time with people we love. But as someone who believes in the birth of God in human form, I will make it a point to say “Merry Christmas” and thus make my position clear.
If those who care about religious freedom do not intentionally choose to stand up and stand out in the little things that denote faith, we will wake up one day and wonder what happened to this nation that used to be Christian.