Christmas, Kwanzaa, 2018


Blog 12.19.2017

CHRISTMAS

I have a reason for not being anxious to celebrate Advent and Christmas Day.  Sixty years ago, my father died on December 25.  Fifty-nine years ago, my favorite uncle died a few days before Christmas.  I do want other people to be happy, but I am most at peace when Christmas has gone with the snow, the sunshine or rain, the wind.  I still say "Merry Christmas."  The only genuine happiness I experience, however, is listening to Handel's "The Messiah" and a few songs I've treasured since childhood,  attending Midnight Mass, having home-made fruitcake  after Mass, and eating a special meal with relatives on the excessively commercialized holiday.



KWANZAA



Umoja ---Decide with whom you should seek unity.



Kujichagulia --Expand the terms of engagement for 2018.



Ujima ---Cooperate on a project with people you can trust.



Ujamaa --Be frugal.  Shop selectively.



Nia ---Remember our histories with a purpose.  Read.  Do not make resolutions you have no intention of keeping.



Kuumba ---Write daily.  Continue to practice drawing with pencil or ink  and painting with watercolors.



Imani ---Continue to do battle with the new guises of American insanity.  You will win.





2018



Apply lessons learned in 2017 and be a citizen who votes and becomes involved with several socially meaningful programs.  Pepper elected officials with honest questions and demand they give weekly accounts of what they are doing to improve the quality of life.  Salt them if they fail to provide timely, honest answers and to give persuasive accounts of their activities.



Read extensively and critically.  Do independent research.  Discriminate between news that affects your daily life and the entertainments from newspapers, magazines, and television that either make you laugh with scorn or raises your blood pressure.  Distance yourself from stupidity.  Be defensively pessimistic.



Pray.  In many instances, prayer is efficacious.



Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            December 19, 2017

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