The Yule Blog 2017-18

Walter Russell Mead, a Providence contributing editor, is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. His next book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People will be published by Knopf in 2018.

Walter’s “Yuletide Blog” has been a Christmas tradition for many of his readers since he first published it over at The American Interest’s “Via Meadia” blog for the 2009-2010 Christmastide. This wonderful, if sometimes laid-aside, season in the Christian calendar runs from Christmas eve to epiphany (January 6th). Walter’s “Twelvetide” reflections have shepherded many into remembering not just the history but the meaning of Christmas and the yuletide season.

Providence is thrilled to become the new home for Walter’s Yule Blog. It is appropriate that we become so. As Walter writes, “Christianity is the living force behind American liberal ideology as well as American conservativism.” Providence understands that as we let go of the meaning of Christmas, we deracinate ourselves from our collective memory of Christendom, and thereby such virtues as “humility, forbearance, honesty, and tolerance begin to fade from our common life.” The loss of such Christian memory bodes ill for our republic, and what bodes ill for our republic bodes ill for the wide world.

May these yuletide reflections be a rock against such forgetfulness and a goad to the quickening of faith, hope, and love—both at home and far abroad. Merry Christmas!

epiphany mead yule blog
Day 13: The Light at the End of the Yule Blog

The Christmas season ends on a high note, with the Feast of the Epiphany—also known as Three Kings’ Day, the day on which Christians traditionally commemorate the visit of the Three Wise Men to the infant Christ.

jesus mead yule blog
Day 12: How Real is the Meaning?

History turned a corner with the birth of Jesus Christ, and while the written reports of that event don’t tell me everything I want to know, they do tell me everything I need.

worship religion
Day 11: Sitting in Darkness, Blogging the Light

Whatever the risks of having it in, if we leave religion out of our national conversation, we end up with a vapid conversation that doesn’t address the deepest realities that move most of the people in this country.

yule blog mary mead
Day 10: The Mother of All Meaning

To get any insight at all into what Jesus’ childhood and upbringing were like, you have to do something that sometimes makes Protestants uncomfortable: study Mary.

Day 09: God’s Dilemma

The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong is what, and who, God is bound and determined to love; the question is how can He do it?

exodus yule blog Jesus
Day 08: One for All

The Christmas story suggests that we can somehow try to be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and also to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

Day 07: Meaning in 3-D

That little baby lying so cutely in the manger is the biggest troublemaker in world history, and the shocking claims that Christianity makes about who He is and what He means irritate and antagonize people all over the world.

Yule blog logan mead meaning
Day 6: Personal Meaning

Most people experience moments that suggest life has meaning beyond the quotidian: painting a picture, talking with a friend, holding the hand of a small child, volunteering in a homeless shelter, watching the surf roll up the beach as the sun rises on the horizon. But some believe meaning is not a thing, but a person.

christmas meaning hero
Day 5: The Meaning of Christmas

To understand what Christmas means, we need to know what Christians mean by God, His Son, and what on earth they think God’s Son was doing being born in the first place. We also need to ask why we believe our lives have meaning.

Walter Russell Mead, a Providence contributing editor, is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. His next book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People will be published by Knopf in 2018.

Walter’s “Yuletide Blog” has been a Christmas tradition for many of his readers since he first published it over at The American Interest’s “Via Meadia” blog for the 2009-2010 Christmastide. This wonderful, if sometimes laid-aside, season in the Christian calendar runs from Christmas eve to epiphany (January 6th). Walter’s “Twelvetide” reflections have shepherded many into remembering not just the history but the meaning of Christmas and the yuletide season.

Providence is thrilled to become the new home for Walter’s Yule Blog. It is appropriate that we become so. As Walter writes, “Christianity is the living force behind American liberal ideology as well as American conservativism.” Providence understands that as we let go of the meaning of Christmas, we deracinate ourselves from our collective memory of Christendom, and thereby such virtues as “humility, forbearance, honesty, and tolerance begin to fade from our common life.” The loss of such Christian memory bodes ill for our republic, and what bodes ill for our republic bodes ill for the wide world.

May these yuletide reflections be a rock against such forgetfulness and a goad to the quickening of faith, hope, and love—both at home and far abroad. Merry Christmas!

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