Christmas

As news of a faith based corrections facility opening in Florida elbows out news of the first American Mad Cow, I find myself at work in a cheery Christmas fog. This year for sure, I thought all sentiment would be scoured from the holidays. No particular reason for it. Just fatigue, maybe. We got a house finally this year, Allegra is talking to Sara again, Cheney and Bob and Jeanne all came out from CA for a visit, and the squirrel feeder on the frozen deck is keeping a small legion of beady eyed rodents happy through the December before the election. So there is a plenty to be grateful for. But I seem to be running out of the bottomless optimism that has sustained me through the last decade, when there were few and far between objects of my gratitude.

I am even intrigued by the idea of Jesus again after so many years. I mean, if you put aside the rabble rousers who inspire fear and hatred in his name, he didn't have such a bad message. As somebody said, early christianity was the only game in town if you didn't own property and didn't come from a good family. It was the only organized religion that reached out to the runaway slaves, felons, exiles, homeless, etc of the time. Wealthy and healthy Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, etc families might have made some charitable gestures toward the outcasts of humanity, but they didn't stand on street corners trying to get them to join their church.

Yesterday when Sara donated something to the bell ringer outside the grocery store, he said "This will help rehabilitate drug addicts and prostitutes". Her thought was to jokingly say "That's good because somebody has to help those scum" but she thought better, and smiled, and wished him and you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I say that advisedly, because if you want to wish me something closer to your faith and custom, I will receive it in good spirits, without resentment for its parochial tone, trusting in your good intentions and humanity. Namaste, too.