The First Noel Verse 3

And by the light of that same star

Three wise men came from country far

To seek for a king was their intent 

 And to follow the star wherever it went.

 Noel (4X) Born is the King of Israel

The same light comes to everyone.  I've been fighting really hard for almost exactly the last 24 hours to ignore a man on Facebook who is spewing hate speech about Muslims.  I started to engage with him against my better judgment yesterday because I didn't want to stand silent while such things were publicly said.

The man is an idiot who can't string together a coherent sentence, let alone argument.  A reasoned, multisyllabic response was really just being mean.  Trying to make him feel small so he'd shut up.  Not trying to help him see better.

The nicer spin on it is wanting him to know that his views are Not Endorsed by others -- especially educated others.  But even that goes sidesways on you really fast.

One of his incredibly rude "corrections" that actually made a little sense (instead of just inexplicably saying, "You probably believe in Climate Change so what do you know?" or what I think was an instruction to read the Constitution and/or his summary of it (DEFEND THE COUNTRY) or "You may have seen it, went through each word, but you apparently haven't read it, understand it and digested its meaning."

That last one, I don't even know what it means.  Except how dare I disagree with him despite having read the same document?

Which brings me back, after an unfortunate detour, to a positive thing his otherwise incoherent and hateful ramblings brought into my life.  One of the memes claims that Islam has contributed absolutely nothing to the world in 1400 years.  "Except arabic numerals" I chimed in helpfully.  He responded with a mostly-coherent suggestion that arabic numerals were created before Islam.

A little research found this to be true and that arabic numerals come from India.  Already I am profiting from this.  And as further proof that my dad's theorem that no true thing can truly hurt you or your case, I stand by the statement in general since they were brought to the Western world by the Arabs and popularized by Islamic scholars at least in Western texts.

But on the wikipedia page, there was this quote:

"I will omit all discussion of the science of the Indians, ... , of their subtle discoveries in astronomy, discoveries that are more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians, and of their valuable methods of calculation which surpass description. I wish only to say that this computation is done by means of nine signs. If those who believe, because they speak Greek, that they have arrived at the limits of science, would read the Indian texts, they would be convinced, even if a little late in the day, that there are others who know something of value."[

They would be convinced that there are others who know something of value.

By the light of that same star.

Foreigners, people unlike you, people fundamentally different to you in every way that your time period defines you, can follow the light of the same star.

Just because they don't know the history of why the Messiah is coming doesn't mean they don't follow the light of that same star.  Just because they, like the Jews themselves, expect a political king at the end of the journey doesn't disqualify the goodness of their intent to follow the star wherever it went.

In fact, those wise men did better than anybody in Israel except the shepherds from the first verse.

I think anyone reading knows the main metaphor I'm going for here -- which foreign peoples we fear because we have decided they are too different to follow the same path toward the light that we imagine we do.

It's also easy to see this as a lesson for HIM rather than for me, but really it's a lesson for everybody.  Especially those who think they have it all figured out too often, which is about the only thing that describes both me and my temporary Facebook nemesis.

Just because we look different to modern eyes doesn't mean that we won't both end up in the same Christmas play someday, if we follow the light of that same star.  Our job is to follow the star wherever it went, not pass judgment on people along the way or claim it as our birthright.  The same light shines on us all.