Are there not many ways to think about, well everything?  Certainly!  Who would disagree.  Several days ago, I posted a reflection about Christmas that was about change, about illusion, and about “reality.”  At the time I wanted to tell a post-modern story of an event that has occurred for over two millennia.

Early today when I stood at the counter in Starbucks waiting for my coffee one of the baristas asked “Are you ready for Christmas?’  The question could not have been more clear.  December 24 is Christmas eve, and that is tomorrow.  Christmas as event occurs on the morning of December 25th, as it did originally when a woman felt the labor pains of giving birth to a child.  Ready or not, — Christmas unfolds as event.

Today I’d like offer some recent photos that serve as personal markers along the way to the happening of Christmas 2021.  If you should dedicate some time to reflect, certainly you could offer some personal memories of your Christmas 2021.  As always I am delighted when someone spends some valuable time to offer words of comment as a response to what I managed to write for that day.  I am reminded that every memory that rises to the surface counts, especially those with sharp edges, or those with a rough surface.  Nothing is wasted, everything adds up to the one life which you and I are given to live.

Christmas arguably is the most important holiday of the year.  Around the world nearly everyone is aware of Christmas  If you live in the West cities, towns, and houses are embellished with celebratory decorations.  Several evenings ago we drove around our neighborhood for a close up viewing of the lights which commemorate the holiday.  At some homes family members have dedicated many hours to offer a “show” for public pleasure.  This home was magnificent in simplicity, the form of the home and the dormant shrubs are outlined in light.

Christmas is personal.  That is — Christmas as an event, is a feature of your mind, and of my mind.  There is nothing that is outside of the mind’s reach.  What I know, is what exists.  The unknown does not exist “for me.”  What is meant by “progress” — none other than the boundary-limit of my knowledge that incrementally increases day by day, year by year.

My granddaughter who just turned two years old reminds me of this everyday.  In this photo she has achieved mastery of walking around with my indoor slippers. Motor skills increase in parallel with accomplished use of vocabulary, and the rules of syntax.

I wonder is this what we mean by “the soul”?  Those special, innumerable layers of knowledge that constitutes each of us as individuals?

One more photo illustrating the joint project of knowledge acquisition and transmission.  Indeed much of what I know has come through dialog with others, whether at firsthand face to face encounter, or through reading the words written in a book, or heard/experienced in a Youtube video, etc.  Knowledge for the most part is a hand-off.

Our granddaughter is introduced to the pleasure and the challenge of baking Christmas cookies by her grandmother.  How much do we owe to others who mindfully, skillfully handed us the baton of knowledge?  I am the product of the good will, of the kindness of those who lived before me, and of my contemporaries who coached me to grasp all I have come to know.

Another photo, illustrates the wildness, the irrational that is always woven into the fabric of what is “believed” to be a rational cause and effect world.  Several days ago, when invited to play a musical instrument I sat with my granddaughter on the floor.  I played the stringed instrument, she played the blue electric guitar.  After the fun, with an impish grin on her face, she tossed both instruments over the dutch door, down the carpeted stairs.  Why?  I doubt that she had any reason, just a desire to see what would happen.

This photo concludes the series, the traditional iconic image of Christmas, mother, child, and father.  The silhouette conveys the mythic foundation of Christmas.  Life, even a secure and happy life is felt possible, — in the simplicity, in the protection, in the empathic support of surrounding friends/family.  Also I shouldn’t forget the openness and innocence that learning demands.  Is that enough?  I think it is.