Merry Christmas

A few seconds of the Cathedral Christmas concert that is held each year just for me.  Well it feels as though it is just for me, even though there are several hundred others in the great room.
I wish I could give everyone a chance to hear the beauty that is the voice of many in unison singing songs of praise, love, and peace.  In that special room, hearing those voices, one could almost be convinced that compassion, charity, peace and love might all win out over the challenges of our times.
Upon leaving that concert, and that place, and being thrust back out into the hustle and grit that is the larger city, the realization that if those qualities are to prevail, then dedication, perseverance, and unceasing work are going to be needed.  But those things to could be considered qualities, enlightened states of being rather than, just occupations to be endured.
So, for the New year, and with the return of the sun to warm our days and our hearts, I wish us all peace of heart, compassion for all living things, gratitude at the chance to know life, and the strength to endure it's trials and hardships.

Thanks for the chance to live and feel and to know.

Life could always be harder, but, it could never be better.