{"id":4781,"date":"2014-12-22T10:16:25","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T15:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/?p=4781"},"modified":"2014-12-22T10:16:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T15:16:25","slug":"winter-solstice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/2014\/12\/winter-solstice\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Solstice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-4782\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697-710x270.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_20131228_170306_697\" width=\"540\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697-710x270.jpg 710w, https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697-223x85.jpg 223w, https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697-345x131.jpg 345w, https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/files\/2014\/12\/IMG_20131228_170306_697.jpg 1824w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Winter_solstice\">Winter solstice<\/a> is a time of darkness, and yet, hope.\u00a0 We have passed through the longest night of the year, and now we look forward to lengthening days, more sunlight and the promise of warmth in the months ahead, just on the other side of deep winter.\u00a0 Meanwhile, we bundle against winter&#8217;s chill, stringing Christmas lights to brighten the gloom and singing carols of goodwill to lighten our mood.<\/p>\n<p>We start Christmas week 2014 in a dark and fearful state.\u00a0 The murder of two police officers in Brooklyn caps a season of violence, protest and soul-searching about racial injustice and bitter national divisions politically, socially, spiritually.\u00a0 Violence never is a solution, but we live in a nation where guns are too plentiful and peacemakers seem too few.\u00a0 Too may people believe in the Old Testament&#8217;s teachings on &#8220;an eye for an eye&#8221; and too few embrace the New Testament message of turning the other cheek along the pathway to peace and reconciliation.<\/p>\n<p>For Christians everywhere, the celebration of the birth of Christ this week should be a time of reflection on the true meaning of Christmas.\u00a0 In observing the birth of the Child, we acknowledge the hope of redemption and salvation.\u00a0 But such hope did not come with shiny trinkets and lovely baubles; the hope was fulfilled in suffering, passion, death and resurrection.<\/p>\n<p>We must bring the strength and witness of faith to our present human struggles.\u00a0 People of faith must do more to confront the anger and violence that degrades our communities, that snuffs out human potential, that disrupts families and destroys lives.\u00a0\u00a0 We must work for the kind of justice that is essential to ensure long-lasting peace.\u00a0 Justice must start with a genuine commitment to setting aside the weapons of prejudice, suspicion, vengeance and hatred.\u00a0 We must call out the perpetrators of vigilantism and violence in all corners of our society.\u00a0\u00a0 We must insist that the leaders we have elected to be stewards of our society show some backbone in standing up to the purveyors of injustice.<\/p>\n<p>If we truly believe in &#8220;peace and good will toward all people,&#8221; we must work harder for justice, the only way to achieve true peace.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The true meaning of Christmas demands that we work harder for justice, the essential pathway to peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,509],"tags":[1454,563,250,342,484],"class_list":["post-4781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","category-civil-human-rights","tag-brooklyn-police-shooting","tag-guns","tag-justice","tag-peace","tag-violence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}