Everybody has a birthday – it is when you came into the world. And every time the earth completes one full circle around the sun back to where it was when you were born, we PARTAY! We love our birthday celebrations (and sometimes even stretch it out to a birth-WEEK). The balloons, the presents, and of course, the cake! But did you know that celebrating the day of your birth wasn’t always a tradition? In fact, the early Christian theologian Origen (185 AD – 254 AD) said that it was “sinful and disgusting” to celebrate birthdays. While most Christian sects now celebrate birthdays, the Jehovah’s Witnesses still refrain from this practice.
By the time the middle ages came around, European Christians started celebrating the day that the saint they were named after was born, but the nobility and those who were more wealthy would celebrate the actual day of their birth.
In addition, most Muslims do not celebrate their birthdays. Many, especially those who adhere to Salafism, believe that this celebration could be considered an innovation to their religion, and thus blasphemous. However, as more Muslims move to the West, more are shedding their old ways and celebrating birthdays. In Judaism, birthdays are very important. They are a day of prayer and a time to celebrate life. They are also important for major life events, specifically the Bar or Bat Mitzvah. A Bar (for a boy) or a Bat (for a girl) Mitzvah is a time of immense celebration, occurring for boys at the age of 13 and for girls at the age of 12. These celebrations are ceremonies which signify that a boy or a girl is now a full-fledged member of the Jewish community, and that they now have the same religious obligations to fulfill as any other Jewish adult obligations, which include fasting and reading from the Hebrew Bible.
Sometimes, though, we have birthdays that are more special to us than any holiday shared by the entire country or world. They are when we are with our friends or with our whole family, when everyone comes together and celebrates with us, reminding us that we are not alone in this life. Every once in a while however, we can not have everyone we want celebrating along with us. This is what happened to a Kentucky man named Jeff Grimes – or so he thought.
[post_page_title]The birthday dinner[/post_page_title]
Kentucky native Jeff Grimm was about to hit the mid-century point in his life – the big 5-0 – a big time for anyone. His wife therefore decided that he should have a big birthday. However, this birthday party would not be big in the sense that there would be a whole bunch of people, cakes, balloons, and performers, but in the sense that it would be extremely meaningful, and a birthday he would remember for the rest of his days.
