Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 17

DECEMBERING: TO SHARE LOVE

 

One of the great things about love ...

is that it grows in ever larger ripples when shared.

One shares with another, 

then that heart touched by love shares, too.

One becomes two. Two becomes four. And four becomes eight.

Not every heart which receives, gives, of course.

Who of us has not received compassion and felt the better for it?

We are let into a busy traffic line, and we wave thanks.

But do we give it? 

Do we let another in somewhere else down the line?

Or do we just go on our way, too much in a hurry to return the favor to a stranger?

Have we received compassion, wisdom, kindness repeatedly from a friend, 

but then have been hurt by that same friend?

Can we find it in ourselves, that after having taken so much, to give one thing ...

the benefit of the doubt,
to trust in the past acts of friendship to give ...

forgiveness?


That is the secret of Boxing Day, 

still celebrated in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom ...


(though not as widespread as it once was --
like many customs of kindness and compassion)

to give from the surplus that we have received on Christmas Day.

One of the clues to Boxing Day's origins can be found in the Christmas Carol, "Good King Wenceslas."

Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen's Day — Dec. 26 —

when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. 

Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine

and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant's door.

Christmas love and magic is better when shared. 

Just like laughter is somehow more than doubled when the joke or 

the funny movie is shared with a friend.

What is more beautiful than a unicorn in the snow?

Two unicorns racing through the flurry of snowflakes together.
***

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

“And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, 

let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, 

and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and moves upon them. 

He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--

and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, 

He came down to earth and gave us Himself.”
― Sigrid Undset 

  MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIENDS!

CHRISTMAS EVE AT MEILORI'S

 

My arms were filled with packages for my friends.

On top of them was a small gold box for Alice,

 containing a silver garter with one word stitched in scarlet thread, "Rubicon."

The little joke would make Alice groan and Victor snicker.

But underneath it was a finely crafted broach of one single black rose,

reminding them both of the time they were reunited by an enemy ...

that something good can come from a hurtful act ...

as Easter taught us so long ago.

 
Each package contained both a gag gift and a meaningful one. It was tradition with me. 

Samuel, Renfield, Magda, Ada, Margaret, Hickok, and Toya were all taken care of.

I stood on the corner of Royal and St. Peter, waiting for the sun to set on Christmas Eve ...

and for Cafe Royal to be transformed into the CrossRoads of Worlds,  

Meilori's.

There was a hollow moaning of music soft and eerie all about me. Ghost demons swirled from the billowing mists layering the street.

Black wings rustled angrily as a tall being with three slowly revolving faces suddenly stood by my side. 

The eagle face cawed at the spirits.

"Not tonight. Begone!"

They went. Very, very fast.

"T-Thanks," I managed.

The lion's face wrinkled with an emotion I couldn't read. 

"We did not do it for you. Enter. You are expected."

 
I shivered, promising myself I would add a lump of coal to Samuel's package next year. 

I entered as the lamb's face winked at me. My shivers picked up goosebumps for company.

I walked through the saloon doors that once belonged to the bar owned by Hickok in Deadwood. 

I set my face to be prepared for anything. Like always when I did that, I got the one thing I didn't expect.

The place was empty.

Its shimmering, slowly spinning chandeliers illuminated gothic furnishings straight out of a Victorian Gentleman's club. 

Scarlet wall hangings fluttered from a breeze I could not feel. Portraits of lovely ladies turned their heads in the paintings to wink at me.

"Come. Sit. Drink some of this horrid stuff."

I turned to the bar and to the sound of the deep voice. 

I frowned. 

A short, muscular man in a plaid shirt, faded jeans, and hiking boots. His hawk nose said he was Jewish. His sparkling eyes hinted that he was friendly.

He patted the stool next to him. "Put those packages on the table next to you and sit yourself down before you fall down."

I sat down on the stool. Man, I towered over him. He had to be five foot six inches at the most.

"Five, eight," he smiled. "Jewish males when I was born were usually five, five."

His smile gleamed white in his bronzed face. "I was a giant among men then ... in some circles."

He touched the scars on the back of his hands softly. "Not so much in others."

"Joshua," I whispered.

"Right the first time," he laughed. 

"Only Greeks should call me that other name."

"But you don't have a beard."

His face sombered. "After the soldiers half-pulled it out, I shaved off the rest of it."

He sipped from his glass, filled with thick white liquid and grimaced, 

"Why do you people drink such a terrible tasting beverage in honor of my birthday?"

"White Russian?" I winked back at him, hoping to bring the light back to his eyes.

"Ha. Ha. Egg Nog. My last earthly beverage had more kick than this."

"You turned that down as I remember."

"Yes, I should have taken a sip to take the edge off this egg nog. Yuck!"

"You come here often?"

"Every Christmas Eve for one drink of egg nog with Samuel. Of course, I don't show up in this body. He must make up his own mind about me."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Getting into fatal trouble with Victor and the others as we speak."

I started to get up when He waved me down. "Sit. I sent reinforcements."

His smile flashed like dawn through the trees. "My present to you."

"Th-Thanks."

"Da nada," he chuckled as if at some private joke.

One eyebrow raised slowly. "No questions on your future? No requests to become the next J K Rowling?"

I shook my head. "I don't have the pretty legs for it."

He snorted, "Always a joke when you are scared, isn't it?"

"That or a White Russian."

"You dress better than the Dude, and you don't drink," he smiled softly.

"With the trouble I get into sober, can you imagine me drunk?"

He sipped his egg nog. "Yes, I can. And even with me being me that is scary."

I nodded to the empty tables. "Where are the other customers?"

"I made them uncomfortable. Can you imagine that?"

"Perhaps it was their pasts," I said.

His face grew sad. "Or their futures."

I had to remove that sadness somehow. "Joshua, what did the zero say to the eight?"

Joshua, being Joshua, spoke the answer with me. "What a lovely belt you have on."

He massaged his temples with his long, strong fingers, and I saw the small scars on his forehead from the last present humans had given him.

He shook his head. "That has got to be the worst joke told for the best reason I have ever heard."

He winked, and it struck me as a rather sad one. "Catch you later."

And He was gone.

"Looking forward to it," I whispered.

I sipped my own egg nog and grimaced. Jeez, He was right. This stuff did taste terrible.
***

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE and its MAGIC of THE THRESHOLD

There are moments that happen that change how you look on life and on what is and is not possible.    You are never the same afterwards.  
 The Nativity was one of those times.

 There is even a word for this situation: “Liminality.” 
“Liminality” is the word for the threshold moment: 
from the Latin root limin, meaning the centerline of the doorway.
  Liminality is the moment of crossing over. 

It describes the transitional phase of personal change, 
where one is neither in an old state of being nor a new, 
and not quite aware of the implications of the event. 
All the stages of life include liminality. 

Life is nothing but moments of crossing over. 

Liminality is why we celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but not other holidays’ eves.



We celebrate Christmas Eve 


because Jesus is traditionally thought to have been born at midnight.  



And we celebrate New Year’s Eve because midnight is when the year changes. 




Christmas Eve is a threshold moment.




We can choose to stay on the other side of the moment, 


refusing to enter and accept what gifts await us.


After all, for most of the world there is still no room in the Inn for He who breathed the world into existence.



Christmas Eve is the time to reflect on what awaits us beyond whatever threshold we choose to cross ...


to reflect on what thresholds we thought would always be there but now are gone, 


along with the mortal hearts that waited for us beyond them.



Whatever you believe, 


it can be a healing thing to take Christmas Eve to reflect on all the gifts given to you this past year


and on what needs exist in your surroundings that you can be an agent of healing by meeting. 



Christmas Eve revives the wonder of childhood 


where snowflakes sing on their way down to the ground, 


where faeries ice skate on bird baths, 


and magic waits for us to open the door of our hearts to let it in.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE, MY FRIENDS!

Pie Jesu
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem
Sempiternam
Requiem

***

Merciful Jesus
Who takes away the sins of the world
Grant them rest
Everlasting
Rest

DECEMBERING: Someone With Skin On

CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS

Black Friday.  Cyber Monday.
We celebrate Christmas but often not from a Christian perspective.

If people enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, 

it might make Christmas healing in some way.

But most do not.  

Many feel obligated to spend too much for too many.

Is it because we have forgotten to be thankful and filled with awe at the gift of Christ, 

at the gift of our being able to love even if we do not feel loved?



A young boy kept coming out of his bedroom during a lightning storm 

to stand at his parents' bedroom door.

"No need to be afraid, honey," said the sleepy mother.  "God is with you."


"I need someone with skin on," he sobbed.

We all do at some point in our lives.  
Perhaps that is why God came to us wearing a human body --


 to give us someone with skin on.

But what if we do not believe in Christ or any God during Christmas?

For one month out of 12, 

Christmas Season gives so many a chance to bless those around us 

in ways that warm not only the receiver but the giver as well.

Giving someone a needed gift is like giving them a fragrant rose.  


Some of the perfume stays with you.
If for one month out of the year, 

we find ourselves remembering the magic and innocence of childhood dreams --


Christmas has still given us  a special present.




WISHING ALL OF YOU  A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

DECEMBERING: CHRISTMAS AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

 

The recycled air was hushed.  
My scientists assured me we were on the brink of 
a revolutionary breakthrough in interstellar technology. 
I had it on better authority they were wrong. 
I sat alone in the crowded dining area of my scientific star vessel, Pequod.  


I was carving the baby Jesus from a very sensitive compound 
to put in the manger of my one of a kind Nativity Scene on my table.


I watched the woman pry herself from the squirming mass of scientists, decadent rich, and media stars.  
Clothes were archaic.  
Body paint was the rage.  Many of their bodies were painted to create the illusion of wearing clothes.


It was the sorry story of Man: 
Rebellion replaced new restraints for the old.  Conformity was the jailer of the soul, the enemy of freedom.  
 It was no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. 

I scandalized the passengers by being clothed in my black Stetson, broadcloth jacket, shirt, jeans, and boots.  
I was determined to die with my boots on.  
General Custer would be so proud of me.
I sighed as I studied the approaching woman.  
Fashion Obesity was all the rage in the populated worlds 
as were women's heads scalped to look like hard boiled eggs.
Rocio Facundo, the darling of slit-throat reporting.  
She had been responsible for so many suicides, she was called Lady Death.  
That name would not sit well with my expected guest.  Rocio twitched continually as she approached me. 
Two reasons:
One - 
humans were addicted to the feel of others' bodies pressed against them. 
Two - 
humans now needed constant stimulation so much that most had neural stimulators implanted into their brains.
When she spoke, Rocio affected an Argentine accent.  


Five hundred years ago, when the world finally succumbed to Man's cascading failure
to deal with terrorism, nationalism, and bacteria, Argentina had been the only country on earth to survive.
Rocio frowned as only some of her words were heard at my table.  


Lady Lovelace's last invention was her sound-filter of "colorful metaphors" as she called them, 
crying as she did so, thinking of the end of my son, Victor, and his wife, Alice.


Rocio's lips were glowing, letting me know we were being broadcast to her vicious, sadistic viewers.
"McCord, what harm are you festering here, breaking the law sitting by yourself?  
You know that privacy has been outlawed as the lone citizen is a potential risk to society!"


"As has heterosexuality," murmured Rind, suddenly appearing in the seat beside me dressed in a mini-skirted black Gestapo uniform.
It was hard to believe that the Nazi nightmare had faded in the memory of Man.  
Myself, I still couldn’t rid myself of the images of freeing the few pitiful survivors of the death camps. 
I remembered too much, understood too little.
Rind purposely flung back her long silver hair as a slap to the fashion-addicted Rocio.  
"Samuel, you named your craft Pequod.  How poetic of you."
Rocio rasped, "Teleportation in a moving star craft is not possible!"
Rind smiled icily.  
"The good news is that soon, child, you will not need to delete any more memories to make room for more."
Rocio frowned, "McCord, what does this out-of-date hag 
(eternal adolescence had been achieved by the Thymus Implants) 
mean by poetic?"
I said, "Pequod was named for the Pequot tribe of Native Americans who once inhabited New England during the 17th century, 
but were annihilated during the Pequot War and are now as extinct as compassion."


I sighed, "Call it foreshadowing."
Rocio frowned, "I do not understand."
Rind smiled, "You and the known universe will when this craft's Heisenberg Drive is activated."


Rocio said, "That fantastic drive will fold known space in ways that will allow Man to be a galaxy away in an eye-blink."
“It's nice to be sure," I said, finishing carving the detonator as the Baby Jesus, 
leaving his face an empty space as was befitting the Great Mystery.
A phalanx of armed guards tramped to my table as Rocio pointed at me with an accusing forefinger. 
 "See!  Against Galactic Statute, McCord is practicing religion."
I shook my Stetson-covered head.  "Don't do religion … just being respectful."


"Arrest him!" cried Rocio.
The guards' leader gruffed to me.  "Shall we eject her into open space, Captain?"
I shook my head again.  "It would be redundant."
I flicked cold eyes to Rocio.  
"As long as there has been Man, a fella could always buy the law if he had enough money."
I sighed.  We increasingly lived in a world that forgets.

 Companies had almost no sense of their own history, 
while politicians positively reveled in the fact that voters couldn’t remember 
(or chose to forget) 
lies, deceptions and even criminal behavior. 
That was a problem because power was essentially a battle between memory and forgetting.
I could tell my Head of Security to forcibly download Rocio’s memory of me into my ship's Recycle Bin.  
But in a moment that would be unnecessary.
"Bring her back to her womb of 'friends.'"

I turned to Rind, the Angelus of Death. "There are beds of kelp smarter than Man is right now.  But you're sure the Great Mystery says it's time?"
Rind smiled as if it were a raw wound.  "Our Victor would call it Existence's Blue Christmas."
"Now, it's me that doesn't understand."


Rind lightly touched the empty manager.  "When He was born, the sky was in red shift, the stars and galaxies heading away from your planet."
She sighed, "Now, outside this vessel, your eyes would see the blue shift as all descends into the center."
Her winter frost eyes grew wet and snowflakes flew up from them. 

"I have come for the universe, Samuel.  Trigger the Uncertainty Drive of this vessel and start the chain-reaction."
Her voice became that of a little girl's.  "When none live will I cease to exist?"

Inserting the Baby Jesus into the manger triggering devise, I smiled sadly.  "He promised Forever."
{FINI?}

DECEMBERINNG: THE 4TH CHRISTMAS GHOST

 

The  FOURTH CHRISTMAS GHOST?
The Ghost of Christmas Never To Be ... Again.
Perhaps Christmas will never be as innocent as we remember because we are not as innocent as we were then.
Families were bigger in the Christmases of the Past

Now, single child families are the norm ...where Mommy and Daddy may be separated, divorced, or never togetherin the first place.

LONELY is now the word that comes to mindat the mention of Christmas for many when once it used to be  JOY 
POVERTY
Christmas has become a season of sorrow for many women who can barely put food on the table, 
much less presents under the tree. 
My mother was one such person.

Weeknight movies were cheaper than weekend showings.  
On the way back to our basement apartment, 
we would walk down dark, scary streets holding hands
and singing our theme song, Side By Side:
Oh! We ain`t got a barrel of money
Maybe we`re ragged and funny
But we`ll travel along
Singing a song
Side by side
With no money for a tree, 

Mother scooped up the largest fallen branch from the lot selling them and brought it home.

Topped with shiny aluminum scraps from Hershey's kisses, 

it was just as wonderful to me as the one in New York's Time Square.

CHRISTMAS MAGIC
Can be conjured to push back the 4th Christmas Ghost, if we but cling to the truth that love and imagination
is within the heart of each of us to share 
with all those in our world who are going through harder times than they appear.
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Celebrate Christmas Eve in 1946 New Orleans. The ghost of Charles Dickens recommends it!

DECEMBERING: BELIEVE IN THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS?

 

The magic memories of Christmas thatmost of us treasure are unique to each of us.

 

 Yet, sometimes clarity comes onlyupon reflection. 

 

We get so caught up with the tugsand pulls of the season that we miss the truly priceless people andmoments. 

 

 If we but reflect we will seethat 

 

We were blind to the lovehealing us and holding us tight in the arms, words, and actions ofthose we too often took for granted.

 Still, 

 

we were innocent enough to seefairies dancing upon frosted lake surfaces, 

 

to taste the falling snow, 

 

and to laughingly makesnow-angels.

 

 As adults the world is too muchwith us. 

 

 Yet, The Great Mystery hasgiven us one month out of 12 to see the world as the child we oncewere, 

 

the child we can once again be ifonly we put down the hates and anguish that only harm us anyway.

 

 

If the yellow, green, red,and blue lights don’t twinkle with their normal festivehappiness 

 

and instead glower like warningbeacons, it is the mind that views them that has changed.

 

 The magic is stillthere, waiting for the child you once were to believe in it again.

 

By years of Hurt and Anger,you have closed the door to it. 

 

 But each time you smileto a hurried face that seems lost in life, 

 

each time you back up toallow a weary older person in line ahead of you,

 

each time you pause to lookat the snow-layered buildings as the child you once were would see them --

 

you open the door to thatChristmas Magic a little wider.

 

Every day you live can bemagical 

if you work at it.  

 

 

The path of leastresistense 

is to live in a worldleeched of its color and vitality 

by Anger and Hate. 

 

 Choose to find the laughter andbeauty as you live each hour.  

 

Each laugh, each act ofcompassion is a brushstroke that adds the color of magic back to yourlife.

 

The magic of Christmas has nothing to do withdecorations, lights, presents, Christmas trees or anything so material.

It has everything to do with a little girl’s smile 

and a mom who buys real candy canes for their tree 

so she can hear her little girl giggle as they decorate it together.

Give a smile or a laugh tosomeone.  

The present you will receive willbe ... 

Magical

The gifts we give that mattermost 

are the ones that cannot be 

bought or sold. 

Me and Midnight looking for thatChristmas Star

The love we share and the memories we leave behind, 

are the greatest gifts we cangive. 

 

They are the only gifts 

that last a lifetime.

Talking about gifts ...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KQ8XMJR
Mystery, Murder, andChristmas ghosts
on location in New Orleansduring the filming of acursed Hitchcock movie.
The Kindle book (99 cents)is chilling

The audiobook narratedby the late Scott O'Dell,victim of last year's Florida hurricanes,is downright spellbinding. https://www.amazon.com/Beware-Jade-Christmas-Ghost-Story/dp/B08QR7MYHX/

DECEMBERING: Has CHRISTMAS Lost the Magic for You?

 

IT HAS BEEN A TOUGH 3 YEARS FOR SO MANY
IF YOU FIND IT HARD TO GLIMPSE THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT ...

LET THERE BE LIGHT
The reduced level of sunlight in fall and winter may cause winter-onset SAD . This decrease in sunlight may disrupt your body's internal clock and lead to feelings of depression. 
A drop in serotonin, a brain chemical (neurotransmitter) that affects mood, might play a role in SAD .
Light up your room, apartment, or house. It will make a difference.

Before two hurricanes destroyed my old apartment complex, 
a few of us tenants would pool together our money to hire a horse-drawn carriage to ooh and ahh at our city's Christmas Lights.
It was safer than driving our cars and perhaps getting into a wreck by being distracted drivers.
After a tornado ripped our city apart this year there are no horse-drawn carriages ... but I have the memories to light my heart.

KEEP MOVING

Benefits Of Cold Weather Running

1 ) Extra calories burned, during and after. ...

2 ) Feel happier, train harder. ...

3 ) Get a sweat on. ...

4 ) Free up the fat stores. ...

5 ) Boost glucose uptake. ...

6 ) Get one up on Summer. ...

7 ) Create some headspace. ...

Morning runs: try doing your outdoor running in the morning.

ORPHANS IN THE STORM PARTIES

"No, I will not abandon you nor leave you as orphans in the storm."  John 14:18

Being alone during the holidays can exacerbate existing feelings of depression or even cause them, 

so if you’re facing the prospect of a lonely Christmas, gather up your single friends and anyone you know whose family is far away and have a party ... even if it is only by Skype.

A Skype Party is fun:

 No need to dress up, nor eat goodies made by those who mean well but can't cook to save their lives, and no one yucky trying to hustle you under the mistletoe!

You’ll be doing yourself and them a favor.

FIND THE SMILE HIDING UNDER THE SNOW

Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs and muscles, and increases the endorphins that are released by your brain.

Activate and relieve your stress response. 

A rollicking laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response, and it can increase and then decrease your heart rate and blood pressure. 

The result? A good, relaxed feeling.

Soothe tension. 

Laughter can also stimulate circulation and aid muscle relaxation, both of which can help reduce some of the physical symptoms of stress.

LONG TERM EFFECTS

Laughter isn't just a quick pick-me-up, though. It's also good for you over the long term. 

Laughter may:

 

Improve your immune system. 

Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that can affect your body by bringing more stress into your system and decreasing your immunity. 

By contrast, positive thoughts can actually release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses.

Relieve pain. 

Laughter may ease pain by causing the body to produce its own natural painkillers.

EASY FOR ME TO SAY?

When two hurricanes had me homeless for 7 months, Lifeshare graciously let me sleep on a cot in a corner of their T-Shirt storeroom.

I would joke to the blood techs coming in at 5 A.M. that at least I had no excuse for being late for work 

and when a 4 A.M. blood drive would show up to prepare for the day, they would find me in the freezing storeroom with my Bah, Humbug! Santa Hat on.

ALL THIS IS JUST FRIENDLY ADVISE, MIND YOU

Sometimes you find a blogger who does a really good interview. Here's one.https://myjustsostory.blogspot.com/.../rattlesnake-by... Evernight Teen #paranormal

DECEMBERING: SILENT KNIGHT

 

This Holiday Season Night as I sit in the shadows  with the foreboding, silent ghost of Christmas Future,

 

it occurs to me that each of us is a Silent Knight ...

 

 

A Silent Knight for whatever creed shapes our thoughts andsteps.

 

No matter our words, it is our actions that speak for us.

 

 

Have we spoken love and forgiveness 

only to retort sharply atthe harried store clerk who did not respond fast enough for us?

Have we scoured the stores for just the right present, theperfect gift wrap 

only to snap at the very ones for whom we bought it out ofirritation and weariness?

 

 

Have we slaved over a king's spread of assorted recipes, 

onlyto have no appetite or warmth or patience for those for whom we prepared thedelicious dishes?

 

If we were to glance up and see the flag of the True Creedwhich our actions proclaim we live by, 

would we cringe in disbelief?

 

  Today books, films and Internet sites are filled with fancifultales purporting to tell the history of "Silent Night."

 

Some tell of mice eating the bellows of the organ creating thenecessity for a hymn to be accompanied by a guitar.

 

Others claim thatJoseph Mohr was forced to write the words to a new carol in haste since theorgan would not play.

 

The German words for the original six stanzas of the carol weknow as "Silent Night" were written by Joseph Mohr in 1816,

 

when he was a young priest assigned to a pilgrimage church inMariapfarr, Austria.

 

The fact is, we have no idea if any particular event inspiredJoseph Mohr

 to pen his poetic version of the birth of the Christ-child.

 

The world is fortunate, however, that he didn't leave itbehind 

when he was transferred to Oberndorf the following year (1817).

 

On December 24, 1818 Joseph Mohr journeyed to the home ofmusician-schoolteacher Franz Gruber

 

who lived in an apartment over the schoolhouse in nearbyArnsdorf.

 

He showed his friend the poem and asked him 

to add a melodyand guitar accompaniment so that it could be sung at Midnight Mass.

 

His reason for wanting the new carol is unknown.

 

Later that evening, as the two men, backed by the choir, stoodin front of the main altar in St. Nicholas Church

 and sang "Stille Nacht!Heilige Nacht!"

 

for the first time, they could hardly imagine the impact theircomposition would have on the world.

 

And so,

 

they were Silent Knights for their God.

 

As we, too, are Silent Knights for our gods:

 

Esteem in the eyes of others,

 

Wealth, 

 

Social Status, 

 

World Acclaim, 

 

Control over Others,

 

Control over Ourselves,

 

or 

 

He who sang the universe into being.

 

 

We can hardly imagine the impact our actions, positive orcaustic,

will have on the network of fragile souls

in our world. 

 

 

That fact should make us careful and compassionate in the daysto come.

 

May your Christmas Season be magical and healing.

 

As we listen to Mannheim Steamroller's Silent Night, the ghost of Christmas Future and I tip our egg nogs to you,

 

while I try to ignore the fingers holding his glass are skeletal.

 

 

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