But there is this...

I have four great Nieces and Nephews. All of them are under 3 and a half. One currently is under a year still...and a new Niece is on the way any day. All I know is that I love those kids like crazy, so holidays are good just to get home. Sure, I would not care to keep a lot of the useless traditions that grate on my spiritual sensibilities, but being around those kids for the better of a day is pretty darn cool.

Sure, I asked for a book and received it called "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning". This resulted in a charge from my brother, "is that about peace Crap?" But holding his youngest son, Austin, or Awesome as I call him, for just a few minutes makes the whole day worth it. He is so stinking cute, even when he is just drooling all over me because he can't keep his mouth closed at all...and, since he is an Abshire, it is a huge mouth to be sure...

Or when Jillian or Savannah will randomly be struck with the desire to run up to my knee with their hands up. I think pretty soon they are going to know they have me wrapped around their finger when they tell me they love me totally unprovoked...

Jakey is my other nephew who has the biggest grin on his face the whole time. Like Jesse described Isaac once, Jakey has one speed, Clumsy. He is the easiest of the ones older than one to pick up and hold with the least amount of wrestling. Hopefully, he will learn to use his powers for good and not evil.

I guess I write all this to reconnect to this whole "spirit of Christmas" crap...Being with family can at the exact same moment drive me nuts and refresh me. I don't understand it for crap. Ya, I wish I could kill the materialism in me and everyone else, but it is not likely to happen. Working on it in myself takes up enough of my energy.

Someone asked in the comments what do we do...Good question. If I had the perfect answer, I would not be writing here. But I think there are things we do and are doing to get closer to the ideal I hear more of our generation talking about along these lines. I have to believe that realizing that something is not right is part of the process. Searching for pockets of people that are willing to engage the discussion helps. Finding support for crazy ideas. I debated for a while about giving gifts in the form of animals to third world countries. But I wussed out...Norrie told me once that his family has discussed spending their gift money to go on a mission trip over Christmas, I thought that sounded pretty amazing. No way it would work with my family, but that would be cool. I have thought about maybe trying to lead a mission trip like that...How many students would be interested? Another question is would it be a legitimate sacrifice? or something else to add to what we want to do?

However, I think Jake makes a great point that the solution is bigger than Christmas, because Christmas is not the only time this is a problem. It simply serves to compound the issues and what not...More discussion?

This Tsunami stuff is crazy! I was ticked at one site that said something about "3 Americans among the dead in Tsunami event" or something. Like Americans only need to care about something of this magnitude if America is somehow directly involved...

Peace

posted by Dusty @ 3:43 PM