{"id":497,"date":"2006-12-20T18:43:23","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T18:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html"},"modified":"2006-12-20T18:43:23","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T18:43:23","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas To Me!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/simple2_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"155\" alt=\"Simple2_1\" src=\"https:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg\" width=\"100\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> I can&#8217;t believe what turned up at the used book store the other day.&nbsp; <em>&quot;Simple&#8217;s Uncle Sam&quot;<\/em> by Langston Hughes.&nbsp; The store knows to call me if any title arrives by Ellison or Hughes.&nbsp; They called and I dropped what I was doing and raced downtown.&nbsp; Merry Christmas to me&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/langstonquote.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"136\" alt=\"Langstonquote\" src=\"https:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/langstonquote.jpg\" width=\"200\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>In addition to be one of the original jazz poets, Langston Hughes, was a newspaper columnist as well.&nbsp; He created a character named Jesse B. Semple to express the views of ordinary black men facing issues such as church, relationships and fighting Hitler while serving in a segregated military.<\/p>\n<p>I only heard about old Jesse but have never read any of his character.&nbsp; I&#8217;m already enjoying it and wondering&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>What if I did this?&nbsp; Have you ever wanted to create an alter ego to say things to others that you really believe but weren&#8217;t sure if you could say them yourself?<\/p>\n<p>Hmmm&#8230;who should my alternate personality be?&nbsp; That is, other<a href=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/langstonquote.jpg\"><\/a>&nbsp; than being the Jazz Theologian!<\/p>\n<p>P.S.&nbsp; The quote in the picture reads:&nbsp; <em>&quot;Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.&quot;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t believe what turned up at the used book store the other day.&nbsp; &quot;Simple&#8217;s Uncle Sam&quot; by Langston Hughes.&nbsp; The store knows to call me if any title arrives by Ellison or Hughes.&nbsp; They called and I dropped what I was doing and raced downtown.&nbsp; Merry Christmas to me&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Merry Christmas To Me! - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merry Christmas To Me! - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can&#8217;t believe what turned up at the used book store the other day.&nbsp; &quot;Simple&#8217;s Uncle Sam&quot; by Langston Hughes.&nbsp; The store knows to call me if any title arrives by Ellison or Hughes.&nbsp; They called and I dropped what I was doing and raced downtown.&nbsp; Merry Christmas to me&#8230;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-20T18:43:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Merry Christmas To Me! - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Merry Christmas To Me! - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"I can&#8217;t believe what turned up at the used book store the other day.&nbsp; &quot;Simple&#8217;s Uncle Sam&quot; by Langston Hughes.&nbsp; The store knows to call me if any title arrives by Ellison or Hughes.&nbsp; They called and I dropped what I was doing and raced downtown.&nbsp; Merry Christmas to me&#8230;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2006-12-20T18:43:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html","name":"Merry Christmas To Me! - The Jazz Theologian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg","datePublished":"2006-12-20T18:43:23+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-20T18:43:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/simple2_1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/merry-christmas.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Merry Christmas To Me!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/","name":"The Jazz Theologian","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}