Happy Holidays to All our Friends, Relatives and Everyone Else as Well.
John: I bring you a gift this year. Whether you are celebrating Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Christmas, it is the season of giving. It is the season of happiness, joy, hope, peace, and love. I wish these were my gifts to you, but that would be impossible. I don’t have the ability to do that. However, if I am not being too presumptuous, there is a secret I can share with you. It is not a really a secret but a path to everything that you could wish for. There are many paths in this world that will bring you to what you want but they are not always easy to follow. Some will tell you that “loving everyone” is the path to happiness and peace. A great idea, but in truth one that I have found nearly impossible to follow.
Some will tell you that gratitude is the path to contentment and happiness. I have found this path easier to follow but not always appropriate. Some things I am never going to be grateful for. Then I realized that much of my unhappiness comes from “disliking.” I may dislike some people, some places, or some things. For example, I dislike ham and freeways. I don’t think that I will ever love either one, but I don’t have to dislike them. I can choose to simply accept a certain neutrality towards them. I will call this the path of neutrality. A path characterized by neither liking nor disliking something or someone. When I stop disliking something, I have given myself power over my own life by taking control of the choices I make. When I dislike something, I am controlled by what or whom I dislike. Instead, we can choose a path of neutrality. In 2024, try taking a trip down the path of neutrality. If I make any progress, we may meet each other on the path. As Porky Pig said, “That’s all for now folks.” Time to hear from Karen.
Karen: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to all!
2023 has been an interesting year for us. In February, I made a trip to Minnesota to visit my daughters Juli, Susan, and Megan with a side trip to Cornucopia, WI to stay a few days with Kevin. We had fun together with many late-night talks and watching the deer on Kevin’s property. However, I had asked for one blizzard while I was there, and no one provided that for me, In fact, it was warm with melting snow much of the time. The rest of the winter was the snowiest on record. Hopefully my upcoming trip in January this year will provide at least one good snowstorm. On my return from Wisconsin, John and I finally caught Covid for the first time. Not pleasant, but no lingering effects,
In June, we started off for Wisconsin in the RV and had a nice visit in Albert Lea with my cousin Jane and husband Bill. We had made reservations for the summer in an RV park not too far from Frederic for three months—I called it the Great Experiment. Could we really live together in a 26-foot RV with all our stuff? The answer was “not too well”. Mosquitos and wood ticks attacked us whenever we were outside. John had too little space to do his exercises, and the kitchen table was the only place for the laptop. My solution was to practice my instruments and work on my quilting in the screen house with a nice fan while John stayed inside with the air conditioning on frigid. We took one trip in August to visit my cousin Gretchen and husband Robert in Door County on Washington island. We had a good three days together, reminiscing and listening to Robert’s stories about his life in South Africa. We left for our AZ home at the beginning of September.
We came back home to AZ for a few weeks, then left for a trip to South Africa. It was a wonderful trip, and it was made more meaningful after Robert’s story sharing. As a person who lived through the apartheid era, he has written several books about his experiences growing up in South Africa. We stayed in Cape Town for a week. In and around Cape town we visited some historic towns, wineries, museums, flower gardens, churches, and the famous Table Mountain. One day we took a boat trip out to see some penguins and other sea birds. We then flew to Johannesburg where we toured Soweto, the Apartheid Museum, Nelson Mandela’s home and several other historic areas. Next by car we went to a Scottish resort. We spent a day or so just relaxing. It was then on to Kampala Game Reserve to spend three days on morning and evening “game drives” to find various African wildlife. We have seen most of the same species in zoos, but it is nothing like seeing them up close in the wild.
Friends have asked us what we liked most about South Africa. The scenery was wonderful. The food was fantastic. The history was fascinating albeit very sad. But the best part of the trip was the South African people. They were warm, friendly, and hospitable. They were the icing on the trip. No where did we find anybody who was not helpful and willing to go out of their way to make us feel at home.
That is the END. At least for this year. Attached are some pictures from our South Africa Trip.
Wishing you good health, peace, love, and joy for 2024.
Karen and John
Every year since Karen and I were married we have put up a Christmas Tree. Putting up a tree was once something I hated almost as much as I hated the entire Christmas event. I would be more than happy to forget that Christmas ever existed. I made my first wife miserable with my incessant complaints about Christmas and made a promise to myself not to let my hatred of Christmas get in the way of Karen’s love for the holiday. So very dutifully I unload the tree and boxes of ornaments, put on some Christmas songs, and help Karen decorate our tree. 
I saw another shadow ahead. The shadow became more defined as I came closer, and I realized that it was my father. He was standing there shaking his head. He started yelling at me. “You can’t do anything right. You fuck everything up. Leave it alone, I will do it myself.” I stopped to tell him that I was sorry. I always tried but it was never good enough. He just shook his head. The light moved on again and I followed it down the path.
Soon, I could make out two more figures on the path as I approached their shadows. One was my former wife, Julia. She was sitting on a rock with my daughter Christina. Christy was seven or eight and they were both crying. I remember the scene well. I had taken a picture of them both that day amid that dismal moment. I was oblivious to their pain and heartache. The picture is in a scrapbook that I left with Julia when we divorced. It has often haunted my thoughts. I can see the picture in my mind just as clearly as if I were holding it in my hand. I was the reason; they were both crying and trying to comfort each other. Thinking of the pictures reminds me of the bastard that I once was and how horrible I had often been to Julia and my daughter Christy.
The other is anyone who you do not identify with. It is anyone who is on the other side of the fence. It is anyone who does not belong to your tribe, religion, political party, sports team, demographics, ethnicity, country club, neighborhood, gated community, state, country, or hemisphere. It is someone who looks different than you do. It is someone who thinks differently than you do. It is someone who behaves differently than you do. It is a stranger from a strange land. It is a poor person who needs a handout. It is a rich person who does not have to work hard. It is a very educated person or perhaps a very uneducated person.
One of my best friends and I were recently discussing the current mania with “Identity.” There has been much talk these past few years over the issue of Identity politics. Identify politics has been defined as:
This mania with identity presents a problem in the political arena where compromise has long been a foundation of good government. The concept of Identity has so polarized people that they now view the “other” side as having no validity and even in many cases being EVIL. The problem of Identity has metastasized from the political arena to the wider social arena which includes almost every aspect of life on the planet. I think it is safe to say that Identity has always been at the heart of conflicts since the Tower of Babel and perhaps Adam and Eve. Did Eve feel inferior to Adam and want to one up him? Some recent headlines about the concept of Identity include:
Mark Twain wrote a famous story which he asked not to be published until after his death. The story was called “The War Prayer.” A church service is being held at which several soldiers are getting ready to go off to war. The chaplain has just given a prayer for the soldiers welfare and victory. A stranger enters the church and asks the chaplain to say a few words. Reluctantly the chaplain agrees. The stranger starts off by referring to the war prayer that the chaplain gave to instill morale in the soldiers. The stranger notes that there are really two prayers that have been said. One has been spoken and the second one unspoken. The stranger then says that he will speak what was really asked for in this prayer:
We have a world where humans have begun to take war for granted. It is either too easy to do nothing about war as we watch our favorite sports teams fight it out or Osho is right, and we crave the excitement that death and destruction bring to the planet. If we truly want to end war and violence, we must start to see everyone on the planet as a people that we are part of. There must be no “others.” We are all part of one large tribe. Just as the water, soil and air are part of a seamless whole, so is humanity. Benjamin Franklin said, “Either we all hang together, or we all hang separately.” I think we might say something similar for humanity. Either we all live together peacefully, or we shall all die separately apart.”
Suffice it to say, I am awestruck by the reply from ChatGPT. She/he might just eliminate the need for many experts including pundits like me, psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, professors, sociologists, psychologists and even you. I am scratching my head as to what I can add about the subject that ChatGPT did not provide you. I can tell you a story though that ChatGPT cannot concerning a major non-closure in my own life. One episode among many that has left me with regrets. I can also tell you that it is not always easy to get closure on incomplete episodes. Many things can get in the way. Perhaps the primary barriers either being the unwillingness of one party to try or to reciprocate an effort and of course our own egos.
few years later, I decided to reach out to him again. You can guess his reaction. He was angry and insulting. I decided to drop my effort. Over the years, we have had some interactions by phone or email but nothing that has substantially reinvigorated our former friendship. I am not sure whether he feels any loss, but I can honestly say that I miss him. He had many good qualities and there were many times that we spent together that I fondly remember. I have been the one over the past few years to try to reach out, but my efforts have gone nowhere. At this point, I have decided that “people change” and that he is not the person that he once was. This is a good excuse or rationale for my letting go and forgetting him. You can no doubt pick many holes in my logic.
I could point out that few things worth having ever come easy. The problem is that too many of us grow up today with the fantasy that as the song in My Fair Lady goes, “With a little bit of luck, you can have it all.” I grew up with a phrase that was popular in my neighborhood that went “He got the breaks.” This meant basically that he/she got what they got cause they got lucky. They did not have to work hard. They did not have to practice. They did not have to study. They simply had to get the “Breaks.” It took me years to realize the fallacy in thinking that luck has much to do with what one gets in life. Two of my now favorites quotes are:
A life without closures will be a life not really lived well. The more closures we can accomplish, the more satisfying our lives will be. Perhaps only a life lived with closures can be a life lived without regrets. We will all have regrets in our lives. Our incomplete episodes are links in a chain that we forge as we go through life. A key question is “how long do we want our chain to be?” The more effort we make to complete these episodes, the shorter our chain will be, and I think the happier our lives will be. Look at the incomplete episodes in your life today. Which ones still cause you heartache and regrets. Is it too late to do anything about them? Would it be worth the effort? What would it cost you to try?
Holiday time or Holy-Day time? Each holiday season, I wonder what time people are really celebrating. Christmas becomes X-Mass. Holy-days become holidays. Days of remembrance become good days to host a backyard barbecue and Thanksgiving simply becomes the springboard to “the shopping season.” The big kickoff being “Black Friday.” Where is our soul? Where is the spirit in our natures? Is time off meant to be simply another day to watch the “big game.” Are holy-days meant to be spent shopping? Is Black Friday now the most important day of the year? Is Santa Claus a Good Christian because he gives toys to tots? Was that Jesus Christ’s message, to spend Christmas roasting chestnuts round an open fire singing Jingle Bell Rock?
Please note, it is not my intention to sound like the Grinch or to “cast stones” at others. We all need time to relax and we all need time for fun and games. However, when do we say enough? What about the meaning of the time that we are granted? Do we simply see our time off as a holiday or do we embrace this gift of time to remember our dead, our veterans, our special leaders and those that helped pave the way for the lives that we can live today. These “holidays” we are given each year, whether in remembrance of a religious or civic event should not pass by without our taking the time to remember what their true meaning is.
I have so much but I am continually looking at people that are more successful, make more money, have more friends and are in better condition. Yet once I pause for just a few seconds to reflect on my blessings, I realize that I have the greatest wife in the world and I am healthy and moderately well off. I have six happy and wonderful grandchildren. I have more friends than I have time to spend with. In short, I have nothing to complain about. I have nothing to be selfish or greedy or jealous about. I have been blessed with a wonderful life and yet I hardly ever stop to say “thank you God for what you have given me.” I am usually too worried about what I have not been given.
Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire started its decline after having been the greatest empire that the world had yet seen. Many historians point to the decadence of the Roman Empire during its decline. “Decadence” is defined by the Oxford On-Line Dictionary as, “Moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.” The Romans had their “Bread and Circuses.” The Oxford Dictionary defines “Bread and Circuses” as, “A diet of entertainment or political policies on which the masses are fed to keep them happy and docile.” For many, football and politics are the bread and circuses or our American Empire. I think the rot and decay in America today goes much deeper than that. Here is my list of some of the decadence that I see in the USA today:
I have another T-Shirt where I list the “No Exceptions” groups that somehow seem to be conveniently overlooked by many Cultural Christians. The major fallacy that many Christians seem to observe is to define their neighbors as either someone in their own church or in their own social group. When Jesus included the Samaritans who were an outcast group at the time as his neighbors, this should have made it clear that you must go beyond your tribe or friends to include other nations, other ethnicities, other religions, and other people with different beliefs as your neighbor.
I heard this story from the Pastor at my wife’s church this past Sunday. It was the day after Veterans Day, and it brought tears to my eyes. I am not sure where the story is from but it will touch the heart.
During high school, he was bullied by the other boys who saw his lack of sports prowess as being girly. He could not throw a ball or catch a ball. He did not excel in any studies, and no one cared whether he joined any campus groups. The young man could not wait to get out of high school. He felt like a misfit there as well as at home. Once he graduated, both parents were hoping he would leave home as soon as possible. His dad suggested that he join the army and took him down to the enlistment office.
The other recruits merely shrugged their shoulders and off they trudged in some sort of order to the barber, uniform supply office, medical office, chow hall and then their assigned barracks. Along the way, being laughed at by other recruits who had already been in basic training for a week or so. Shouts were heard that they would never make it and they would be sorry they joined. The more this hazing went on the more worried our young man became. He finally went up to his Drill Instructor (DI) and told him that he did not feel very good. This did not sit well with his DI who singled him out for some abusive name calling. He shamed him as a sissy and weakling in front of his entire platoon. Our young man began to feel like a misfit again and like he did not belong in the US Army.
Aging Capriciously 