December Morning...

December begins with festivity. Main Street is decorated with tiny bright multi-colored lights. The shops are decorated in pine and garland. The large tree in the center of town has been topped with a silver star. Yesterday, I went shopping for holiday cards, and there was a chorus of carolers. It was a scene right out of Dickens.

The merchants were beaming with holiday cheer. People meandered, despite the winter cold, gazing through shop windows specially decorated in holiday themes. Gold reindeer, miniature trains, frosted glass, and fur wrapped porcelain dolls. The smell of roasted chestnuts was in the air.

What is it about this time of year that brings out the very best in our human nature, and would that it could last year round!

The sun is shining today, though all remain huddled against the bitter wind. December also represents year's end. We are living through difficult economic times. Some shops are closed, never to be re-opened. Boarded up stalls sober those who pass by.

Even in our little town, foreclosed houses dot the landscape. Public services have been cut, even further. Pantries empty, people go hungry. The homeless live in makeshift camps in the deep woods.

Who are these homeless? Please, place all caricatures of rail-riding hobos out of your mind. The face of homelessness has now become that of families. Entire families in tent cities, eating soup from cans, washing tin plates by creek water. This too brings to mind images of the Victorian era. A great and ever growing impenetrable chasm between the poor, and the diminished wealthy.

Dear reader, for this entire year, I painted the portrait of an enchanted town. In so many ways we were safe, protected from the plagues of big city strife. But, at wonder's end, we have become one with the rest of the country. The mists of enchantment that surround our evergreen hills have thinned.

Time has finally made its way through our protective veil. If quaint little towns, such as this, should disappear throughout the land, we would lose something precious, treasures from our shared and distant past.

Modernity for all its advances and technology is no more beautiful, idyllic, or content with itself than the sepia-toned images in our nation's lost and forgotten photographs.

Perhaps, this is one of the reasons God chose this as my place of exile. Perhaps, I was meant to search through steam-trunks in web-covered attics for the specific purpose of finding old postcards of grinning faces, neighbor helping neighbor, a kinder, gentler age. Perhaps, I was meant to remind us all of our humanity. If we were once compassionate, we can be so once again. If we were once able to be present to one another, we can be present yet again.

If we were once content with simpler pleasures, then perhaps we can learn to be so again.

The bell tower tolls. The echoing sound from the center of town can be heard even from where I sit, so far removed at the edge of the historic cemetery.

There was a time, when during great suffering and hardship, we all came together as a nation, when the generous and loving spirit of Main Street, U.S.A. was not the anomaly but the norm.

In this season of lights, I wish you all happy holidays, and a brighter and better New Year!

Pax, Shalom, Namaste.