Gracias, Grazie, Merci: Fide Mea

In case anyone cares, or I have given them occasion to wonder: I love god, and I love life with all my heart; and I am profoundly grateful for my path, my opportunities, my losses, and the wisdom born of my experiences. I am grateful for you, your path, your opportunities, and your wisdom. All the weirdness, doubt, and anger I express are done so from the hollow of the hand that sustains me. Sure, sometimes I bite that hand, but the callouses from bring bitten (well deserved, I might add) are so thick upon that hand that mine are hardly felt, and, I'm sure, instantly forgiven, if even noticed. How do I know this? I don't, I just believe it. My belief is born from the same intuition that tells me that I am loved, and that you are loved, and that every life ever conceived  upon the earth is somehow loved, no matter how brief, how ostensibly meaningless, truncated, tragic, or brutish. And may we all dedicate ourselves to making other lives less so.

I could be wrong, and this could be pure sentimentality; but I'm sure I will die believing it. And to die believing this will do me and others no harm, and maybe some significant good along the way. I believe that the greater part of life is random. I have been blessed beyond what I deserve, beyond numberless people more deserving than I. This has been a random assignment. I blindly drew a long straw, and there was no reason for it or to it. All I can do to make up for this is to be aware of it, conscious of the lives and needs of others, and open to helping where I can.

Well, this is the season for sentimentality. It is very difficult to escape. I've never (in my adult life) been a fan of Christmas, or at least the way our culture responds to it. But I'm a fan of life: yours and mine. May yours be especially blessed, and may you have strength to endure the losses, the brutish parts, and the sorrow, and strength to exult and rejoice in the blessings and joys that will come as well. And may we all be given vision to see beyond our circumstances when we need it the most.