Sweet little baby Jesus on a unicycle.
Please tell me these rants are merely the death throes of a way of thinking and doing life that doesn’t have very much longer to exist on this planet:
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Because of these:
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Claim: Starbucks removed all Christmas emblems from their cups because they hate Jesus.
Evidence: [This space intentionally left blank.]
Best sassy statement from my former student, Boniface Njoroge: “Lol! I didn’t know that people consider Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to be messengers heralding the birth of The Christ. The things you learn in a day!”
My retort: “Yeah, you didn’t learn that shiz from me, buddy.”
I know you are all used to reading my posts only on Saturdays, but I just couldn’t lay offa this one. I JUST (and I mean just – as in about ten minutes ago) read a blog by some dude in North Carolina named Chris Kratzer, who I’ve never met and didn’t even know until about twelve minutes ago, who wrote a screamin’ post (which you should read here, right now, before you even read the rest of mine) about all this brouhaha.
Chris’s best line among many in my opinion:
Starbucks owes no one a curtsey to their faith. They are not obligated to give religious sponsorship. They are a free company in a free country. If you want to sip your Mocha Latte’ from a cup ladened with seasonal little-baby-Jesus sayings, do the hard work of starting your own show where you can pimp whatever coffee cup you want. You could even call it “Higher Grounds,” to match the cheesy-Christian, arrogant disposition from which you gaze upon the world.
Chris asks the same question I do when I come across coffee cup clatter like this – which I honestly thought was a joke when I first heard about it but, alas, no. It’s the same question I have often asked when I come across people who buy into this idea that we Christians here in America are collectively and uniformly being persecuted for our faith:
What have we become?
When I bought my passion fruit tea at Starbucks this morning in my #redstarbuckscup the conversation went something like this:
“Good morning! I guess there’s been a little bit of hoopla lately about the red holiday cup, yes?”
Shyly, the 19-year-old behind the counter smiled and admitted, “Yes, a little bit.”
“Well, pumpkin,” I replied, “I’m here to make sure you all know that not all Christians think you good folks here at Starbucks hate Jesus. And if you would be so kind as to write on my cup, Don’t Be a Dumbass! so that I can make a statement out in the community, that’d be great. In fact, I’ll be here every week until Christmas to get something in a big red cup on my way to church.”
“Uh…” she smiled even bigger, “I can let you use my Sharpee, and you can write that.”
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Which I did.
“And may I apologize on behalf of my religion that anyone would presume that you are anti-Jesus or anti-Christmas over what is or is not displayed on a cup. Not all Christians are that asinine. A lot of us truly do care about the world.”
You know… It’s exhausting.
That picture shown above has gotten a lot of *LIKES* today on Facebook. You know why? Because I would like to believe that more than just a few Christians truly do care about this world and understand little tidbits of truth like these:
It’s a helluva lot easier to sit behind your keyboard in your underwear giving your hearty best effort to change the world one snarky Facebook meme at a time and attempt to micromanage the way other people live their lives than it is to giving your hearty best effort to eradicate poverty, abuse, and oppression.
(That’s easy.)
It’s a helluva lot harder to go find almost 300 young girls who were stolen from their school by Boko Haram because they had the audacity to believe they were worthy of receiving an education and bring them back to their families.
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(Oh, wait… that’s hard.)
It’s a helluva lot harder to rescue victims of human trafficking. According to UNICEF, thousands of children are trafficked right here in America from all fifty states in this here union.
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(Ew, that’s hard too.)
It’s a helluva lot harder to create a safe space in our culture where those who care come together and protect the 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys who are molested before their 18th birthdays.
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(Okay, this is just too much… I wanna talk about ME! I want to talk about how MY rights are being taken away!)
Wait… WHAT???
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I can’t take it. Not for one more minute. Can we all step out from behind our keyboards for just a second, put our phones down (gasp!) and muster just a SMIDGE of that indignant fervor to resurrect Christ’s directive to go out and spread the Good News? Because here’s some news for ya who have bought into this whole idea that the resistance you’re getting from those who don’t believe the way you do somehow translates to persecution OR the fact that an entire company should cater to your religious beliefs and the fact that they don’t trumps hunger and war and poverty:
Holiday cups, sans snowflakes, that don’t say Merry Christmas on them isn’t news at all, and they’re only a threat to that theocracy you’re trying to conjure up and get everybody else to buy into.
In fact, those cups are not a threat to you at all.
Jesus is okay.
Christmas is okay.
You’re okay.
You’re a dumbass.
And, Mr. Kratzer, I can’t speak for what others have become or are becoming. But I can tell you what I’ve become – because I used to be one of these who got on every crazy bandwagon and rode them for all they were worth, and I am still ashamed I was ever that way — but here you go:
I, like so many others, have become a voice and an advocate. For the weary. For the sick. For the lost. For the imprisoned. For the widows and the orphans. I, like you, have been anointed to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom to the captives, and to pardon all prisoners. We announce this the year of His grace and comfort all who mourn, caring for their needs and giving them roses instead of ashes, messages of joy instead of news of doom, and a praising heart instead of a broken spirit. We rebuild old ruins and raise entire cities out of ruins. We take rubble and make it new.
We are priests of God.
You know, Chris, we should have a cup of coffee sometime. I know a place…
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Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. Her comedic memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, was Christopher Matthew’s #1 top selling book in 2012. She has a free e-book on her website for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You. Her next book, Hope Givers: Hope is Here, will be out soon. Daisy is also the Editor in Chief of RAIN Magazine, an online magazine that has been a fundraising effort for her three favorite charities and features new, up-and-coming writers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook and Twitter.