so always have hope
it can be hard to find hope
but always have it …

Kate Kellaway, a feature writer and deputy theatre critic for the Observer, interviewed the author, Michael Rosen and published it under the headline, “Michael Rosen: ‘My daughter once called me an “optimistic nihilist.”

That headline caught my eye so I read the interview even though I had never heard of Mr. Rosem.

Ms. Kellaway asks, “In The Big Dreaming, you have three catchphrases – “happiness right now”, “safe path home” and “have hope”. Why this trio?”

Mr. Rosen responded with: Happiness is worth striving for but the problem is, the more you strive for it, the less you get it. You have, somehow, to happen upon it in a light way. And about the safe path back home… one thing I learned in rehab is that, at the end of the day, you have to help yourself.

Ms. Kellaway asks, “And hope?”

Mr. Rosen responded with: “You can’t go to the next minute if you don’t have hope. My daughter once said: “Dad, you’re an optimistic nihilist.” I said: “What’s that?” And she said: “Well, you don’t believe in anything divine but you’re optimistic about life.” And I said: “Yes, it’s not much fun to be pessimistic about it.” So always have hope. It can be hard to find. But always have it.”

Happiness right now.

Safe path home.

Have hope.

It’s not much fun to be pessimistic about it.

So always have hope.

It can be hard to find.

But always have it.

Not bad to start the New Year.

Though ….

Yet …

I am reminded of how the movie, PATTON, ends with a voiceover of George C. Scott reading something General George S. Patton wrote.

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

I can say always have hope.

But whispering in my ear a warning is the voice of Morgan Freeman saying, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Drive a man insane. It’s got no place here.”

You buys your ticket and you takes your chance I guess.

Take a walk on the wild side.

Always have hope.

Christmas in the air,
yet the air seemed too soft to
sustain the treasure

In his January, 1966 essay, What Do Our Hearts Treasure?, EB White laments a Christmas in Florida away from New England, snow and family.

Mr. White writes: The scene was idyllic. Christmas was in the air, yet the air seemed too soft to sustain it.

Mr. White and his wife, Katherine Angell White, receive a box from home with evergreens, gifts and photos and with these items, the White’s restore the feeling’s of the holiday as they remember the question, What do our hearts treasure?

Mr. White does not go one to include the answer to this question that comes from the Bible.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

We took a day to drive up to Atlanta to see our kids and our grand kids.

We had presents but seeing those people, I tell you, it wasn’t that the air seemed too soft to sustain it, it was that the air was strong enough to contain it.

Where is my treasure?

It is with my heart … up in Atlanta.

getting back to where
the Christmas Story began …
back to … Ephesus

Most of folks know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem over in the old country.

Most folks know the connection between Jesus and Christmas.

The reason for the season and all that.

We read this year that due to the conflict in Gaza, Bethlehem was closed this Christmas.

No one could get to where the Christmas story took place.

But could they get to where the Christmas story started?

I mean the start, the origin, of the story of the Christmas.

When, where was it first told?

If we go to the book of Luke, Luke records the story of Christmas and the angels and the shepherds and then he writes, Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

I think it was Mary who told Luke the story.

Who else had all those facts and names and places in their head?

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

To get the story from Mary I think that Luke traveled to the city of Ephesus where tradition has it that Mary lived with her nephew, the disciple, John.

I am going to keep that in mind next year.

I am going to recommend that folks travel to the birthplace of the Christmas story.

To Ephesus.

no message of love,
goodwill, friendship, that can’t be
conveyed in a book

This ad ran in the New York Times, 100 years ago today, December, 20, 1923.

There is no Message of Love, Affection, Good-Will or Friendship that cannot be conveyed in a book.

In 1928, the New York Herald Tribune would report, ” … Brentano’s on West Forty-seventh street probably [is] the foremost bookshop in the world. Over a million books are kept in stock, and there are branch shops in Washington, Chicago, Paris, London.“

realized that the man
who spoke to them was sincere
could feel in his tones

Only a few weeks ago we were listening to the King’s Christmas broadcast. I am sure that as the years went by people liked more and more to listen to these talks addressed by a King to his own people. They realized that the man who spoke to them was sincere. They could feel in his tones that firm religious faith which was one of the sources of his strength.

So wrote Clement Attlee, the man who replaced Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in an election in the summer of 1945, in his autobiography, As It Happened.

He is writing about George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.

This was the same King whose stuttering problem was profiled in the movie, The King’s Speech.

The same King who stayed in London during the bombing in WW2.

As his wife, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother said when asked about leaving London for someplace safer or maybe sending their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret away, “The girls will not leave without me. I will not leave without the King. And the King will not leave.”

Some might look for me here to point out that even today we have people making speeches and we might feel in that person’s tones their level of sincerity and the extent of that person’s firm religious faith.

But no, I am not going to point any fingers or make any comparisons.

If anyone came to your mind, well, squeaky wheel and tight shoe pinching the foot and all that.

Can’t stop you from making any comparisons now can I.

This is the speech Mr. Attlee heard on Christmas Day, 1951.

George VI died the next month on January 31, 1952, of lung cancer/

“As I speak to you to-day, I would like to wish you, wherever you may be, a happy Christmas. Though we live in hard and critical times, Christmas is, and always will be, a time when we can, and should, count our blessings – the blessings of home, the blessing of happy family gatherings, and the blessing of the hopeful message of Christmas.

“I myself have every cause for deep thankfulness, for not only – by the grace of God and through the faithful skill of my doctors, surgeons and nurses – have I come through my illness, but I have learned once again that it is in bad times that we value most highly the support and sympathy of our friends. From my peoples in these islands and in the British Commonwealth and Empire as well as from many other countries – this support and sympathy has reached me, and I thank you now from my heart.

“I trust that you yourselves realise how greatly your prayers and good wishes have helped, and are helping me, in my recovery. It has been a great disappointment to the Queen and to myself that we have been compelled to give up, for the second time, the tour which we had planned for next year. We were looking forward to meeting mv peoples in their own homes, and we realise that they will share our regret that this cannot be. I am very glad that our daughter, Princess Elizabeth, with her husband, will be able to visit these countries, and I know that their welcome there will be as warm as that which awaited us.”

I think I can repeat that last of the 1st paragraph.

Christmas is, and always will be, a time when we can, and should, count our blessings –

the blessings of home,

the blessing of happy family gatherings,

and the blessing of the hopeful message of Christmas.