CHRISTMAS FOR LITTLE JULIE

...As long as love is possible, peace is possible...

...The books say he was 31 years old when he died, but he died a child, a child running errands...

...And there is reason to believe that he thought that people had to find peace within themselves before they would ever be able to make peace in the world...

...Of course there aren't very many places left where people aren't throwing rocks at each other...

...And so, while they reject him in their hearts and in their councils, they compete with each other in proclaiming him either the greatest man that ever lived or the Son of God...

...You know, too, Little Julie, that though some people say that this prophet was the greatest of men and others insist he was the son of God, the argument as to his ancestry is not very important as long as nobody on either side of the fence pays very much attention to Ilia advice...

...In Rome and Jerusalem, then as now, the people who wanted peace wanted to get without giving...

...If it were, the dungeons of the world would be peaceful...

...But peace is not just the absence of rock-throwing...

...it is just that he was punished for something different...

...So don't let the war worry you, Little Julie...

...The Nazarene's Recipe You know, as you celebrate the birthday of the man from Nazareth, that he was the first man in our western world to preach that a man should turn his other cheek to the man who slapped him, and give his coat to the man who took his cloak, and love his enemies, and forgive those who injured him...

...The thing he did that was different, as you know, was to proclaim a recipe for peace to a world which wanted peace but wanted to get it the easy way...

...Sing out, like the angels on the first Christmas Eve...

...And whatever you do, do not be proud that the Nazarene was a Jew like you, lest you have also to be ashamed that the Jews helped the Gentiles crucify him...

...I answer that there is...

...Peace Is Within You You know, Little Julie, that on the first Christmas Eve, when the eternal child was born in a stable, the angels sang of peace on earth, and you ask me why there is no peace on earth...

...The prophet from Nazareth was childish, and spoke the language of the little children who came unto him...

...Since he was a wise man, he could not have meant the peace of the dungeon or the peace of the victor when he preached peace...

...His last errand was to carry a heavy cross up a hill, not just for his mother or for his father but for all people, to give them strength, by his example, to run their own hard errands after he was gone...

...So the Nazarene was not punished very much worse than any other criminal of his time or ours...

...I am afraid it will not be at peace in my time or yours, and I think that the prophet suspected as much...

...No, Little Julie, peace is within you...

...You know how the man from Nazareth wound up, practicing as well as preaching this strange recipe for peace...

...Not just all white fnen, or all rich men, or all Americans, but all men...

...The Nazarene's way was the hard one...

...You know that this simple Idea was that all men are brothers...

...You know, too, Little Julie, as you celebrate your ninth Christmas, that this prophet was a simple man, with a single, simple idea...

...They called the prophet a fool, a Utopian, an appeaser, and a traitor...

...Christmas For Little Julie By MILTON MAYER HERE you are, going on 10, Little Julie, and you know that when you celebrate Christmas you are celebrating the birth of a great prophet, a prophet who was not especially popular with either the Jews or the a Gentiles in his own time and is not much more popular now, if you measure his popularity not by the nice things said about him but by the number of people who follow in his way...

...Sing out for the good will to all men that will bring peace on earth...

...As long as you give the bigger share, forgive those who hurt you, and work and fight for all your brothers, not just for some, and not for yourself, you can have peace...

...He must have meant the peace that anyone can have, even in a world at war...

...You know that you feel better that way, even though somebody else gets away with murder and looks as if he is better off than you are...

...You know that this strange recipe, based on the faith that no man could hurt his brother without hurting himself, was the prophet's recipe for peace...

...You know all these things, Little Julie, because you are a smart little cookie, smarter now, at nine, than a lot of captains and kings who are full of power and glory...

...And it's not, now that I think of it, because you're a child, and every child knows that it's better to make up than stay mad, better to give the bigger share than the littler, better to return what you've taken than to hide it away...

...Instead of being proud, be glad that such a man lived for all men, that he left behind him a recipe, still to be tried, for peace on earth, and that millions and millions of people, whose voices have never been heard, have run their hard errands better, stumbling blindly through the shell-holes of the spirit, for his having shown them how...

...He insisted that the way to get was to give...

...He wound up crucified on the cross...

...The world was at war when the prophet of peace was born and when he died...

...Even now they make fun of his recipe, but they are af raid, as were those who crucified him, that he may be right...

...You know that the prophets who went before him, though they had some very fine ideas, never dared to have that «ne: though they spoke of peace, they left men divided Iteto nations against each other...

...He never grew up...

...and we know that the prophet of peace did not mean for his brothers to live in dungeons...

...It is still at war...

...You know, from your own little experience, that it makes you feel better to love than to hate, to give rather than get, to forgive rather than get even...

...though they fought for justice, they sometimes forgot about the love that is more than justice, the love of each man for all because all men are brothers...

...Crucifixion, you know, was the barbarous punishment of criminals that prevailed in the western world before civilization devised the B-29...