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FROM A READER—"Buff, I was raised in a spiritual heritage that made a concerted national effort to not give any spiritual acknowledgement or credence to Christmas. I was trained in all the arguments against such an observance and learned to view with disdain those who didn't understand how misguided they were. We did observe Christmas, however, but as a secular holiday, with all the non-Christian decorations, gift giving, excessive eating and parties.

"It strikes me as an extreme irony today that we see those attacking Christmas being 'anti-Christian' while they are essentially doing what we would have had them do all along—that is, regarding Christmas as just a secular Holiday. These people seem to be the allies of illogical thinking. I am embarrassed when I consider some of the places we allowed our human logic and pride to take us."—Name Withheld.

I was brought up and indoctrinated in the same partisan arena, my brother. And while I can see the extreme elements involved in that partisan province, still I have a problem celebrating it as Heaven's Holiday, with its varied ritualistic trimmings that were devised and promoted by the Hierarchy of the oldest sect among us. I have the same problem with "Easter," another religious Holiday whose origin springs from paganism and the same sect.

I do not consider the honoring and/or dishonoring of the Christmas Holiday and "Easter" a matter of salvation or a condition of Christian acceptance, however. But when I see all of the paganistic components associated with both Holidays, and all of the excessive spending and going into debt, particularly at Christmas time, I grow weary. If there is anything good about both Holidays, it is that many thousands, perhaps even millions, are pointed toward the Cross and its results. And for that, I am delighted.

Do we exchange gifts at Christmas? Yes, we also exchange gifts at various times of the year, but I personally place no more spiritual emphasis upon Christmas and "Easter" than I do any other day. All of my days, 365 a year, are spiritual and special in that I give my Lord the glory and credit for each one.

If our Lord, whose death on a Roman tree made salvation possible, had intended that we set aside special specific days to reverence Him in exceptional ways, as Israel of old was commanded to do, I'm convinced He would have made it clear and precise. If not Him, at least His special envoys, the apostles. But that testimony is absent.

We have twisted, distorted, abused, and mishandled The Way so severely, our "doings" bear little semblance to what our Lord came to initiate and usher in. Christ-time for me is all of the time, not just on special days.