For those of you who already know that for the past few years on Thanksgiving Day, I have done video reciting’s of Dr. James Allan Francis’ 1929 Sermon “One Solitary Life” as an effort to remind people who Christmas and really the Holidays for that matter are truly about.
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Like a lot of people, I often have gotten discouraged at times with how people are using commercialism to mark the Holiday Season. Seeing people line up in the cold outside stores on Black Friday and then racing into the store, running over each other to get something that may otherwise not be needed in the end. It just makes me feel disappointed and sad to the fact that this is truly not what Christmas is really about.
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You might ask what I do to cope with this message? Well, as you all know, I have been in the retail industry for over 15 years and I have seen people time after time throw away the true meaning of the holidays for something usually worthless. In a way, being a neurodiverse individual allows me to think of who is really enjoying this and that is none other than Satan himself.
To this end, I am constantly telling myself to remember what the holidays are really about and that is the birth of our lord and savior and how no earthly power can not affect life the same way as this one solitary life.
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You might also ask, how did I learn about “One Solitary Life” to begin with? Well, you might say that I learned about it in the most unlikely of places, not in church but in Disneyland. Yes, Disneyland!! In 2011, I flew out to attend the park’s annual Candlelight Processional and Gary Sinise was the celebrity narrator for that year. Towards the end of the ceremony, Gary read Dr. Francis’ “One Solitary Life” and I couldn’t help but strongly connect with this sermon.
Now keep in mind, that this was a few months after my grandfather died and a month after my neighbor in back at the time also died. So, I flew out partly to get my mind cleaned out of all the sadness at the time. Up until a few years earlier, I always thought of Christmas and the Holiday Season as a whole as a happy time, but when I was working for Borders Bookstores from 2007-2010, I saw that the happiness of the holiday season was only a facade.
After I left Borders and joined Stop and Shop, I began to see the holidays from a different perspective and that it was really about celebrating the birth of our lord and master, not about getting presents and not about who has the best decorations. It wasn’t until I saw a video of Bing Crosby reciting “One Solitary Life” on one of his Christmas Shows that gave me the inspiration to also share that message to my audience.
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Of course, there had been other versions of this essay including a rather bouncy version by Robert Goulet, but the message remained the same.
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But I simply wasn’t going to be duplicating what either of those men had done or even what Gary Sinise had done at Disneyland. In 2019, right after I left the Brony Fandom when “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” ended, I made my first video of “One Solitary Life” and that it was the first step towards honing my craft in becoming an autism/neurodiversity self-advocate and public speaker.
So, without further ado, here are the first four renditions I did of “One Solitary Life” by Dr. James Allan Francis for your viewing enjoyment.
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Catch you all later!!
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