When we celebrate the birth of someone who, though destitute and carried about by a donkey, possessed a greater nobility than Julius Caesar. Whether you believe in Jesus as historical figure or the son of God, the message he brought is a profound one that cannot be overlooked. Those who came before taught that man's nobility lay within the world by subduing earthly foes and preserving bodily purity. Jesus taught that nobility requires moving beyond the world rather than wallowing in it, fixing one's gaze upward to the ideal and eternal rather than the pragmatic or actual. A blunt way of summarizing the message is that Earth is a ghetto and the body a prison. People who measure their lives solely by their achievements here are poor in spirit, mundane, and trapped. The rich in spirit are in the world but not of it, and nothing of the world can harm them. Understanding this makes all of life's petty torments evaporate, and that is the true gift of Christmas.
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