Participation In A Society

Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it's a human need.

-- Ai Weiwei

Need To Be Flexible

To get on a path to success, we need a plan. To achieve success, we need to be flexible when the path is blocked.

-- Simon Sinek

Suspicious

Every third Monday, I ask myself, what have I noticed lately...about myself. 

This week, for example, I’ve noticed…that I've become more suspicious lately.

Over time, I've recognized that when this happens, something has shifted within me. 

Something feels (more) at risk. I've been having dreams about it.

This should be OK; after all, there's always risk. So, its really about the relationship I have with that risk that seems to shifts sometimes. I've observed, more than once, this is related to how secure I feel internally as a person, at any given moment. And, my sense of security is often based on what I feel threatened by...and why. 

In the end, it is often my awareness of the basis, of my true sense of security, that moves. 

This is the kind of thing that a lot of mental health strategies are actually working with. Our sense of security is also a fundamental base-line of basic spirituality. 

Do I really need to be suspicious, when I notice that I am? Probably not. Perhaps, noticing my suspicions can be an indicator that something has shifted within me...and that I need to pay attention to it and do something about it. 

Almost Everyone Prays

Almost everyone prays...when they feel desperate enough. 

Perhaps the question then is, when (and why) do we stop praying?

"Why do it, if it doesn’t do any good?" — one of our not uncommon thoughts.

An assumption is embedded in this not uncommon working conclusion. Do we think this because when we pray we are, in essence, trying to change God's mind? Truth be told, we often pray because of the leverage we feel in need of. If we feel a lack of power to secure what we need (or want), especially when we feel desperate. So, we appeal to a higher one (until we don’t need it anymore). It would follow then that if it feels like we can’t get God to do it, then why bother?

What if, however, prayer is not really as much about getting something from God as it is a way to get ourselves in the right state of being (in relation to everything…God). And, what if we need to pray because we acknowledge we need God’s help to do that? 

What if, then, prayer is really as much about changing something in ourselves, as it is about changing God's disposition?

3 Observations & A Question

Outrage is not a public policy, by the way.

In a democracy, paying attention is a duty.

...so is not being silent for your fellow-man.

When's the last time you actually had to fight for something good?

 

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

Share of U.S. consumer spending, by income

AXIOS

AXIOS

New York Times

Something To Hold On To

Aren’t we all pretty desperate to find something to hold on to?

So much so, in fact, we often hold on to the wrong things.  At least in the sense that we think they will give us something they cannot give us.

The most obvious example may be the past.  It is easy to think that something in the past will give us something we need, if we just hold on to it long enough.

Or, sometimes we think a certain behavior will do the trick (it worked before, so...).  Often, it is certain belief or system of belief that will do it.

But, whatever it is, in most cases, it doesn’t…primarily because it can’t.

This is true because most of what we actually need is something dynamic in the present. If we follow the metaphor of ‘holding on’, perhaps one that would serve us more would be ‘reaching for’.  What will we extend our ourselves to reach for in our time of need? Whatever it is, it is more something that we need to continue to discover than something that we need to try again. In other words, our need is time sensitive, and it is something that we need now, not necessarily something that we needed in the past.

This is often somewhere between unsettling and frightening to us, largely because we don’t know exactly where that leaves us.  And because of that uncertainty, we are tentative. Discovering (or rediscovering) what we need is an on-going process much more than it is the thing we had at one particular point. 

The past is often an infatuation with outcomes, even if those have been largely imagined. Outcomes don’t play as well with the future because the future is unknown. So, it’s really what we do in the present moment that makes the difference.

What is it that I need to reach for, out my actual need, right now? That is an open posture, one capable of receiving something slightly (or completely) unknown. Holding on to the past is a closed posture towards our receptivity to the future.

But, we want something...so bad.

And, we actually have it, if we are willing to stop holding on to something else.

A Self

A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.

-- Virgina Woolf

Ability to Work Without It

The most valuable skill isn't inspiration, but the ability to work without it.

-- Shane Parrish

Deny Reality

Ever noticed…when people deny reality?

I don't know (sic), what does that look like to you?  Why do you think Greg Bovino is wearing what he's wearing?

And you would like us to just take Donald Trump's word for it (and trust him)?

How much more do we need to see, before we (America) stop denying that the fascism train is already well down the track and may not be able to be stopped now.  Germany sees it quite plainly (and can't believe that we can't). ...so does anyone in America who is already bearing the impact directly — not just in the 'detention' camps, but right out in the open for everyone to see.  

And the administration's take (the one he wants us to take...because Trump decides what is true):

“...the opponent of the state deserved it.”

-- Trump Administration Officials

They aren't even denying it (not to mention apologizing; in fact there is video of ICE agents clapping in approval over Pretti's death...).  In other words, now you don't even have to have colored skin; if you simply oppose us, we can kill you...because you deserve it.

Using intimidation and fear, this is the America they are gunning for (literally).

“​​What we just saw this morning on the streets of Minneapolis is another outright murder by federal officials. And let me just be clear, those federal ICE officers are absolute cowards. I am a Marine veteran standing here telling you to your face they are unprofessional, pathetic cowards. Because if a Marine, an 18 year old Marine, did that in Iraq in the middle of a war zone, he would be court martialed because it is murder. And you pathetic little cowards who have to wear face masks because you’re so damn scared, couldn’t even effectively wrestle a guy [to] the ground, so you needed to shoot him? This is why ICE needs to be prosecuted. Yeah, I voted to defund it, but ICE, you need to be prosecuted, and Director [Todd] Lyons, who’s running ICE right now, I hope you’re hearing this from this Marine to you. You guys are criminal thugs. You need to be held accountable to law if you think you can enforce it, and you need to be prosecuted right now.

-- Seth Moulton, Representative (D-MA)

Unfortunately, Trump has other things working in his favor (and he knows it):

Mr. Trump has found that putting out a story line early and repeating it often can, with the help of an ideological media and online surround-sound machine, convince a sizable share of the public that does not credit contrary evidence. Even after investigations, recounts and his own advisers and attorney general refuted Mr. Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 election, polls show that most Republicans still believe the election was stolen.

-- Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent, is covering his sixth presidency

We wish we could just elect officials who would take care of things for us.  That is, at the very least, lazy on our part.  It does not form a healthy and vibrant electorate or democracy that countermands what Paine (and many others) was worried about even way back then...and, what we should be much more worried about now.  

Charlatans will take advantage of this very bad habit of ours.  They don't think we have the time or fortitude to stop them.  Hopefully, they're wrong — are they or will we just continue to deny reality?

Awe & Wonder

The world presents itself in two ways to me. The world as a thing I own, the world as a mystery I face. What I own is a trifle, what I face is sublime....

We manipulate what is available on the surface of the world; we must also stand in awe before the mystery of the world. We objectify Being but we also are present at Being in wonder, in radical amazement.

All we have is a sense of awe and radical amazement in the face of a mystery that staggers our ability to sense it….

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the … mystery beyond all things. It enables us … to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe. 

Faith is not belief, an assent to a proposition; faith is attachment to transcendence, to the meaning beyond the mystery. 

Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe. Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith. 

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you. The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God.

-- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Moments of awe and wonder are the only solid foundation for the entire religious instinct and journey.

-- Richard Rohr

3 Observations & A Question

Some people pursue their commitments with intentionality; others with spontaneity — and yet others with both.

Conscience is still a thing and the implications are just so many right now.

As long as their 401Ks keep growing, it is just damningly easy for many to just not pay too close attention.

If what we're seeing in America right now is not the implementation of fascism, then what would you call it (besides murder)?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

All The Attention, Again

Somehow, our President managed to grab the whole world's attention (again) this week:

Dear Jonas: 

Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! 

-- President DJT

...meanwhile, other things actually needed attention.  From DAVOS:

Morning Brew

But, no, it all has to be about Donald Trump:

Trump Assails Europe and Demands Control of Greenland

Canada Flexes on Global Stage With an Eye to Its Own Survival

The great Davos divorce: America's allies draw red line with Trump

The level of self-absorption in 'President DJT' is off the charts.  Why that is not more apparent to 1/3 of our population defies my understanding...or my willingness to accept that this IS, in fact, what they want.  

How different all of this is from the post that we started with this week.  

Give That Person

If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you.

-- Sue Monk Kidd

Status Quo

We are inclined to things like…status quo.

Perhaps, we are because we believe there is more to be gained (or less to be lost) if we just keep going and don’t shake things up too much.

But, what if that commitment is what is killing us?  When put that harshly, we may be more open to reconsidering what the status quo is really getting us.

What does it mean to step out?  Does that mean step away?  Does it mean step towards something…else?

Most of us like things to stay more the same.  But, the reality is they don’t.  So, holding out for status quo really doesn’t work that well anyway.  Which might lead us more directly to why we try to maintain it and to the perils of doing so.

Status quo is often about power, at both high and low levels.  Those in power don’t want to lose it.  They work very hard to prevent that from happening, often by simply trying to achieve more power (for example, do you know how many military bases the US has relative to the rest of the world?  And, that still isn't enough...now we need own Greenland), including by any means necessary.

Individually, we also want power; at the very least, a sense that we have some control in our lives.  Too often, though, that too becomes about power.  We want certainty in our lives and don't realize what all we are willing to do to get it, even in our personal relationships.

Change and ambiguity are often uncomfortable.  In one way, they require something of us, that we'd rather not do.  This is where things like true faith are highly in play, rather than the often-false comforts of our belief systems.  Because without a true sense of ultimate faith, we seem far too inclined to things like...the status quo.

When The Chips Are Down

Whether you are a leader or a follower, it matters what kind of a person you have become — because when the chips are down, that is what you will operate from.

MLK Day: Leaders Not In Love With Money

We need leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice.  Not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stand and I Will Be With You

Momentous Revelation

We have made the Bible into a bunch of ideas—about which we can be right or wrong—rather than an invitation to a new set of eyes.

Even worse, many of those ideas are the same old, tired ones, mirroring the reward-and-punishment system of the dominant culture, so that most people don’t even expect anything good or new from the momentous revelation that we call the Bible.

-- Richard Rohr

3 Observations & A Question

Good is not simply a personal thing.

Personal and collective responsibility meet somewhere — ‘minding my own business’ is not enough.

There’s always a political game going on — but when it’s no longer a game, everybody (just about) hates it.

What does solidarity mean to you — when does it warrant protest?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

National Elk Refuge

I want to leave it right there so badly....

But, the contrasts, especially with regard to money, are unavoidable (without just sticking-our-head-in-the-sand):

Billionaire Rams owner Stan Kroenke becomes America’s biggest private landowner

The U.S. is securing about 30% higher prices for Venezuelan crude

...even worse:

US is keeping the money in Qatar rather than in U.S. banks

And, just to top it off:

President Donald Trump is keeping Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize after she presented it to him during their meeting

...if only we could have just enjoyed the implications of Wyoming's National Elk Refuge for just one more minute.

This is helpful:

The question is how to stay engaged without losing ourselves in the process

Storytelling

Of all the skills that I have developed in my life, storytelling may be one of my least developed (although, this one isn't terrible). This is, at the very least, unfortunate because storytelling may be among the most influential of skills.

Of the skills I have developed, a common theme throughout them is my interest in impacting people with what is true…especially about them. So, to have collected a variety of insights about the human condition, the inability to more effectively use them is a kind of sadness to me. Not to say that nothing is essentially there in that regard (ideas can be substantive), but the skill of translating truth in story-form may be near the top regarding impact opportunity for it. In fact, story has been far more utilized throughout the ages, than the more written versions we are so accustomed to now. I wish then I had taken more time to develop this craft, not as much for my sake as for my part (as a fellow human being) in transmitting the nature of human truth which, of course, involves the sublime and the spiritual as well.

As I reflect back on both the trajectory and course of my life and interests, I see a thru-line that could be described as an interest, if not gravitation, to the essence of truth, wherever it may be found. And, one of the more significant discoveries I’ve made is that for most people, their respective relationship with truth is not highly rational. It is experiential. It is emotional. It is psychological.

Many might contend with this assertion, especially those coming from the rational western-philosophical approach to such things. And, even those who would want to distance themselves from some of those domains, largely believe that the basis of their particular embrace of truth is what they think they know…in other words, rational. In fact, many in this subset would side-eye these other dimensions, as being inferior.

But, that is not my experience with or observation of many people. Many, if not all of us, believe what we believe because of the stories that surround what we believe. And, those stories makes sense to us because of our experiences those stories resonate with.

Stories have profoundly impacted me over the course of my life (in some cases even more than the truth they reflect). They are powerful, in large part, because they are so personal. They make the abstract relevant. Stories can both destroy ideas and concepts and, like nearly nothing else, legitimize and perpetuate them.  As we read each day, they can also accelerate them.

So, I'm left a bit with this: what stories am I telling (besides those I'm essentially telling with this blog)?  Which ones do I need to tell?

Permanent Joy

The only way to find permanent joy is by embracing the fact that nothing is permanent.

-- Martha Beck

In other words, holding on to the past and happiness are often incompatible.

What Counts

What counts is not the things that happen, but what we do with them.

-- Annie Ernaux

How We Know

I'm wondering...about how we know who we are.

Do we, for example, know this ontologically? 

Or, do we know this much more practically, like through our experience (family, socially, work, etc.)?

Do we know it spiritually — through the trifecta of scripture, tradition, personal experience (arrange these in whatever order you like)?

Perhaps more significantly, what are the kinds of things that challenge our working understanding of who we are — particularly, the things that disrupt that understanding?

For example, how much of how we think about ourselves is based on what we think others think of us?  Do they like us?  Even more potently, do they enjoy us (…because, what if they don’t?)?  Where do the answers effectively leave us?

We wonder about these kinds of things from time to time, usually as time permits and often only theoretically. But, at other times, we wonder about such things when we discover something that feels like risks something about our self-understanding, especially in a personal way.  Then, the question takes on all kinds of dimensions (some good, some not).  So, what do we, in fact, use to answer it? 

This happened to me this last weekend; which is why, this week, I’m wondering…about who I really am and how I know that.


And, then, there's Mel:

All You Have To Do

All my life, I have been enamored of the God-intoxicated ones. Those rarified souls who slip into ecstatic states and spontaneously utter poetry. The ones who exude deep stillness, embody equanimity, listen more than they speak. The initiated and the ordained, the monastics…. 

I wanted to be one of them. Until I didn't. 

I want you not to want that as well…. I want you to want to be exactly who you are: a true human person doing their best to show up for this fleeting life with a measure of grace, with kindness and a sense of humor, with curiosity and a willingness to not have all the answers, with reverence for life.  

You do not need to chant all night in a temple in the Himalayas. You don't have to be the newest incarnation of Mary Magdalene. It is not necessary to read or write spiritual books. You are not required to know the difference between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism or memorize the Beatitudes. All you have to do to walk the path of the ordinary mystic is to cultivate a gaze of wonder and step onto the road. Keep walking. Rest up, and walk again. Fall down, get up, walk on. Pay attention to the landscape. To the ways it changes and the ways it stays the same. Be alert to surprises and turn with the turning of the seasons. Honor your body, train your mind, and keep your heart open against all odds. Say yes to what is, even when it is uncomfortable or embarrassing or heartbreaking. Hurl your handful of yes into the treetops and then lift your face as the rain of yes drops its grace all over you, all around you, and settles deep inside you.

-- Mirabai Starr

3 Observations & A Question

You can only outrun yourself for so long.

 

We use medication to address our symptoms (of our stress), when the whole while we could be addressing what’s causing our stress in the first place.

Change happens most when stories animate lived experience.

So, will we help the poor, the sick, those in prison…or not?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

On The Lighter Side: People Can Do Stuff

On the Lighter Side:

Power

We've got a staggering relationship with power these days.

Perhaps this is nothing new....

But culturally, right now, we seem quite disconnected from a healthy perspective on where real (good) power comes from.  Our headlines continue to overflow with examples.  

During a conversation with the New York Times that was reported today, Trump said “the only thing that can stop me” is “my own morality. My own mind.”

Trump was responding to a question about checks on his power to attack nations around the world. But his response is increasingly relevant to his power domestically.

-- Robert Reich

Besides the banality represented by Trump, many of our leaders are forfeiting the opportunity to help us; both by neglect and by intention — both by what isn't said and by what is.   

Power is often motivated by some kind of end-game.  We will use it to get what we want and we will come up with nearly endless justifications for its use, to the point that we no longer recognize that it, in and of itself, becomes the driver (rather than whatever it is we are trying to secure).

Fear is usually at the core of power, but greed is right behind it.  And, this form of driver is grotesque from nearly any perspective of distance.

Real power, however, is manifest in the opposite direction.  It is not motivated by things like fear and greed.  It operates from something far deeper; the thing that we no longer even recognize in the lust that power inflames within us. 

Love.

Love is what we both lack and want more than anything else.  It is no strange irony that we will even resort to misuse of power to get it (even though that very misuse effectively forfeits it).  Somehow, though, we've ended up concluding things like our side must eradicate the other side to secure that love.  

We have, as a result, not eradicated the barrier to what we want as we had hoped, but the very ability to know what it is.  Power, in this state of things, is no longer liberating, but enslaving.  It not only damages those impacted by its implementations, but it renders us unable to even consider its ramifications on ourselves. 

While we can legitimately blame our leaders for this, this ultimately is on us.  Too often, they are no better than we are (even if they should be).  If we don't understand these things, how can we require them to?  We have to understand, and live from, real (good) power, collectively and individually — the power of love.

You Want To Live With

You build your mind, so make it into something you want to live with.

-- Marilynne Robinson

Let Others

It's better to endure the discomfort of the truth now, than to suffer the discomfort of the lie later.

-- Simon Sinek

Donald Trump Wants You to Forget This Happened

Donald Trump Wants You to Forget This Happened — stories of actual people involved.

“You gotta win the midterms. Because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be—I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.” 

-- Donald Trump, to Republican lawmakers

A broader telling...here.  

You really can't 'un-see' it, even when they try to re-write it (not kidding).

Unbelievably, this was only the beginning of a take-over that has been being put in place for some time...every day makes it more and more where this is heading.

Conscious Effort

I’ve noticed…that sometimes it takes conscious effort for me to notice what is happening inside myself.

More Available to God

A Rule of Life is not a rigid checklist or a spiritual productivity plan. It’s not about doing more for God. It’s about ordering our lives so we can be more available to God. 

-- Rich Villodas

 
That is about as succinct as it can get, but this seems quite pertinent as well:

Losing My Religion

Rich and Powerful

An Economist/YouGov poll released on December 30 showed that 80% of Americans believe that “political institutions have been captured by the rich and powerful,” 82% believe that “elites are out of touch with the realities of everyday life,” and 74% believe that “leaders who come from ordinary backgrounds better represent people like me.”

-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American 

You don't even need to be the suspicious type to see this...

We all (most of us anyway) know why; which makes this all the more interesting:

‘I Was Just So Naïve’: Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Break With Trump

So:

Why Does Trump Get Away With It? 

A couple of excerpts:

Trump really believes that his strategy of chaos and distraction will allow him to 'get away with it' — given the above, he's probably right (at least in the short-term...which is all he really cares about).

4 Observations (from Others)

What can I do in the next three to five years, that I will respect looking back from my deathbed?

-- Ron Shaich

 

 

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline.

-- David Foster Wallace, This Is Water

 

The patience you need for big things, is developed by your patience with the little things.

-- Kevin Kelly

 

 

Learning how to live a quiet life is an important art, especially in a world that carelessly assaults us with noise.

 

-- Thomas Moore, The Eloquence of Silence

Prior 4 Observations (from Others).

We look with uncertainty

'Poem for the week' -- "We look with uncertainty":   

Let Everything Happen To You

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Such a recommendation may be really be a lot about things like RELEASE.

This perspective might enable us to embrace these recommendations:

Living in the Light of God’s Love

How about a question, then, for the new year?

To explore this further:

Ask Yourself These 7 Questions

As We Leave Another Year

Leave the year behind the way you leave a ridge — look back once with gratitude, then turn toward the next climb with steady breath and a lighter heart.

-- Anonymous

What a year it's been — here are some perspectives: 

The year in video

The Law Is Catching Up 

Thank You

Letters from an American

Prisoner of Other People's Expectations

When your primary goal is to be liked, you can't take risks. You can't disagree. You can't push boundaries. You become a prisoner of other people's expectations. 

-- Shane Parrish

Being Right

Ever noticed...that being right doesn’t really get you very much of what you really want?

What if, as we approach a new year, we resolve to be less committed to being right and discover what that can give us?

Sacred

Whether it be the experience of the sublime in the Christmas season on one end or the trauma of our cultural chaos in 2025 on the other end, I suspect we all are now negotiating something within ourselves. Whether that be culturally, environmentally, physically, mentally, psychologically, or spiritually, we have a shared sense that something is being infused in a way that is compromising us and that a deeper awareness of sacredness is the only real way forward.

Here are two observations that grab my attention on this last Sunday of 2025:

I define “sacred” as that which pulls us beyond the bounds of our individual selves, envelops us within mystery, and gives us a glimpse into the vast, entwined, eternal network of living beings that we are in relationship with.

-- Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder

Sacramental vision means not only that we grow in our love of God’s ways in the world, but also that we grow in our sense of kinship with creation. 

-- Christine Valters Paintner

3 Observations & A Question

We change most when it hurts bad enough…not to.

 

You receive and then you give and then you receive — thus is the cycle of life. 

We need indulgence; but paucity, too — some would say the order, though, should be the opposite.

What would effort not borne out of insecurity look like?

Prior 3 Observations & A Question…

AmericaFest

From earlier this week:

Speaking today at Turning Point USA’s annual “AmericaFest” conference, Vice President J.D. Vance said, to great applause: “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation.”

Actually, we haven’t.

Vance’s statement flies in the face of our Constitution, whose First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, had quite a lot to say about why it was fundamentally important to make sure the government kept away from religion.

In 1772, when he was 21, Madison watched as Virginia arrested itinerant preachers for attacking the established church in the state. He was no foe of religion, but by the next year, he had begun to question whether established religion, which was common in the colonies, was good for society.  Continue here....

-- Heather Cox RichardsonLetters from an American

Family

So much to be thankful for:

Christmas Greetings from a Fairy to a Child

'Poem for the week' -- "Christmas Greetings from a Fairy to a Child":   

Lady dear, if Fairies may 
For a moment lay aside 
Cunning tricks and elfish play, 
’Tis at happy Christmas-tide.

We have heard the children say— 
Gentle children, whom we love— 
Long ago, on Christmas Day, 
Came a message from above.

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round, 
They remember it again— 
Echo still the joyful sound 
“Peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Yet the hearts must childlike be 
Where such heavenly guests abide: 
Unto children, in their glee, 
All the year is Christmas-tide!

Thus, forgetting tricks and play 
For a moment, Lady dear, 
We would wish you, if we may, 
Merry Christmas, glad New Year!

-- Lewis Carroll