Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Late For Christmas

Well, as usual, I'm late dealing with Christmas. I am not doing much gift giving this year due to being poorer this year, but what little I'm doing is done. I still don't have any decorations up, not even a wreath on the door. The problem is that, living in a condo with limited storage, everything is in my storage unit. I just haven't gotten there yet......today for sure.

I got out of the habit of decorating for awhile because we always went to Washington to be with my Son's family. The last few years have seen us home for the Holidays due to my Mom's illness and last year,her passing away. This year will see us home again due to the fore mentioned poverty. Since I'm going to be moving soon, it seems easier to forgo decorating, but I will probably put my small tree up anyway.

The most important thing for Christmas is a loving family and friends and remembrance of the meaning of the Holiday and I've got that covered.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Power of Love

Have you ever noticed how much hate there is in the world? If you spend much time watching TV News or reading the newspapers you have. There seems no end to the hate that people feel. The seem to hate those that are not like them or their group. They hate people who are the wrong color or the wrong religion or those who speak a different language. Even people with the same catagory of religion, like Islam, hate each other if one is Sunni and one is Shia. Christian religions are just as bad. I live in Utah where the predominant religion is Mormanism. The Baptists have protests at the Mormon's semi-annual conferences and say the Mormans are not Christians.As near as I can figure it out, it's because of a disaggreement over what constitutes the "Godhead".

My theory is that people hate what they fear. They fear the "other",that which is not me or mine.What if I'm changed by assocciating with the "other" and my people don't recognise me anymore. What if being "gay" is catching?

I once heard that the opposite of love is not hate,but fear. That really made sense to me. So what if we combat hate, which is really fear, with love. Sometimes it's really hard to understand the "other" because we really are quite different, with many different experiences and traditions. Maybe we could agree to be different and accept those differences that we can, then look for samenesses. There has to be ways we're the same given we're both human. Maybe then we could work to love that sameness about the other and eventually,if not love the differences, at least give them some respect.

It's not likely that we'll get world peace tomorrow, but maybe we could make some peace in the office or nieghborhood to start, work on the world later, if it's still around.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Busy, Busy

It seems that I'm forever too busy to post anything. I'm working full time until after the holidays, so that takes care of 5 days a week. Some nights I am just too tired to do anything but sit in front of the tube. If that keeps up I'll vegetate! We've been listening to Christmas Caroles since Thanksgiving and there are some I'm heartily sick of and there's 3 weeks to go. I generally love Christmas music, but so much of what you get on the radio gets really old really quick.I could really get to hate "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree". Most of the time, I enjoy my job. I get to be a little creative and I get to feed people fun foods, especially around the Holidays. Still, it's a little disconcerting to find out that there are adults around that don't seem to remember that stoves are hot and you shouldn't grab something from a pan that's just come out of the oven. I guess they just get caught up in the moment, afraid they won't get their turn. Did I mention these are adults? Oh well, we're all kids at heart.