A few years ago someone whose faith is different from mine asked me, “Don’t you find it strange that your religion makes jewelry out of an instrument of torture?”

At the time my mom had recently had a debilitating stroke, and I was wearing a white gold cross pendant that she had given me when I was a teenager after I had been baptized. I seldom wear it, but I’d put it on that day because I was feeling sad for the loss of the mom I knew, and it brought me comfort. It isn’t worth a lot, even when the price of gold is up, but it is the most expensive Christmas gift she bought during my childhood, and she bought it at a time when she and Dad had little money to spare.

I tilted my head and pondered what my acquaintance had asked. “I suppose so,” I admitted. Continue reading Who was Christ? What is Christmas? →