30 days later...

-
It's hard to believe that 30 days have passed since my last post (not the last post, thankfully). December has been a busy, busy month. And I suspect it has been for you as well, dear reader, what with Eid, Christmas, and the rapidly approaching conclusion to 2007. (I am reminded of an email I received from a colleague a few years ago, soliciting support for a needy family at Christmas. She attempted to create a sense of urgency by noting that "Christmas was vastly approaching", but only succeeded in creating an exchange of amusing emails ranging from wondering just how big the season really is {It's huge!} to pirate jokes {Maybe she meant avastly approaching.})

The end of one year and the start of the next is a time of reflection for many people, and I am no exception. 2007 was a great year, and I expect 2008 will be the same. Every year has been a great year. I have been blessed my entire life, with family, friends, health, all the things that truly matter.

I'll not get into a litany of my sins and shortcomings of the past twelve months (yes, there have been both), but shall instead look ahead. I think of Ebenezer Scrooge (as played by Alistair Sim, in the 1951 movie - the best Scrooge hands down) who, having scrutinized his past, present, and future, resolves to be a better person. As Dickens tells us at the end of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge "became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world." That seems to me to be as good a resolution as any.

Happy New Year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two books you should read. Now. Go out and get them. I'll wait.

-
I just finished two excellent books, which, when I started out, didn't seem related at all. The first, Michael Pollan's  In Defense of Food , is an entertaining and fascinating look at the impact of science, business, and journalism on what we eat. The second is Born to Run , by Christopher McDougall, an examination of the nature of humanity wrapped in an adventure story. Both Pollan and McDougall are fine writers, able and engaging storytellers dealing with a complex central argument in a compelling way. Pollan tackles food science and the food industry, McDougall sports medicine and sports footwear.  In its opening section, In Defense of Food traces the rise of nutritionism, evaluating food in terms of its component micro-parts - vitamins, nutrients, antioxidants, and the like - the reductionist view of what we eat. Next, Pollan considers what we eat and why we eat it, cataloguing the Western diet and gradual industrialization of food. Finally, he offers what he calls "p...
Read more

An appeal to my better nature

-
My dear wife sent me a note in response to my last post. Trudy reminded me of something important: when strangers speak to us, we have an opportunity to brighten their day. And while she was too gracious to say it, we have an obligation to interact with them, to love them. The flip side to the problem of uncensored self-exposure discussed earlier is unreflective withdrawal. I forget that we are all wounded (me included), and that grace received must become grace extended. Too often I retreat, preferring to escape the situation than to engage in it. While he probably wasn't thinking of all this (though maybe a variation of it), Wordsworth comments on the source of both sides of the problem, and their solution, in the fourth book of his long autobiographical poem The Prelude : When from our better selves we have too long Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop, Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, How gracious, how benign, is Solitude; How potent a mere image of her swa...
Read more

What if she hadn't sung?

-
By now, you have likely seen Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent (if you've been wandering on the outer fringes of Borneo for the last 10 days, click here to see it). The 47-year old was laughed at when she came out on stage and announced her dream of being a singer, hoping to be as successful as Elaine Paige. One young woman in the audience smirked and derisively rolled her eyes. Why this reaction? Susan is not beautiful, slim, young, blonde, or any of the other things we have been conditioned to associate with the music industry, or with the entertainment industry generally. It is that simple. She didn't fit the picture - Christina, Britney, Madonna, Beyonce, and the like - so people expected her to be an untalented joke. And then she sang, and blew the room away. Susan Boyle is a wonderful singer. But what if she wasn't? What if she was tone deaf? Or if she had simply walked off the stage in the face of the reception she received? There probably would not have bee...
Read more