A Few Minutes with the Mayor – December 2018/January 2019

‘Tis the season… a time for family and friends to gather around the Christmas table or the Christmas tree… a time for love and good will to all. Winston Churchill described Christmas “as a season not only of rejoicing, but of reflection.” In Jacksonville, we reflect on this last election where congratulations are in order for the citizens in our wonderful small town who voted 2 to 1 against the meals tax! The final count was 1,343 NO and 688 YES. So Jacksonville is not another Ashland, but more importantly, a steady funding for our Police Department is assured. Happily, we are blessed with a great City Council. Two tasks of supreme importance will be the traffic issues and pedestrian safety, but let’s leave that for future columns. Soon it will be Christmas… the one time of the year we slow ourselves down and actually seem to care for one another.

I see mankind as a stream of people turning a corner onto a street, marching down the street, then turning another corner out of sight. We are all in that stream… young, old, male, female, short, tall, black, white, rich, poor… it matters not, for none can turn around and go back, and none can avoid the certainty of turning the next corner. Would not the trip be more joyful if we all embraced one another for the things we share in common instead of casting stones?

It was a little over two thousand years ago when He told us to “Love one another as I have loved you.” It’s a simple statement without reference to sex, creed, race, or political persuasion. It is one of the most powerful statements ever made and all the hate in the world has never been able to silence it.

In his loveable “Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens wrote one of the best descriptions of what Christmas can mean. In an early scene where Scrooge rejects his nephew’s offer of sharing Christmas with family, his nephew says, “There are many things from which I might have derived good by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew, “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round-apart from… the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Finally, as I have in the past, I will end with another quote, one written by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Robert Sherwood.

From “The Bishop’s Wife,” a Christmas Eve message: “Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts.

But especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a tie. Aunt Martha has always wanted an orange squeezer and Uncle Henry can do with a new pipe. For we forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s His birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that.

Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth!”

Merry Christmas Everyone!