Gratitude

Looking at Christmas cards. Seeing pictures of Mary and Joseph on the road, or in the stable with the baby. They did not get into the inn. They had to make the most of very rough conditions. Some thoughts occurred to me so I decided to share.

Even if they had gotten into Herod’s palace, or even somehow became the guests of Caesar himself, what I have here is unimaginably superior. In my modest house (it’s old, and it’s drafty, and it’s not that big) I have: insulation and central heating, hot and cold running water, flush toilets, electric power, telephone, internet, cooking gas, refrigerated and frozen food, medicine as needed in the cabinet, more than sufficient clothing, a piano, and 5,000 or so books. I can communicate with anyone I want to anywhere in the world instantly. I am within walking distance of two pharmacies where I can get antibiotics if needed. I and my children are a short drive away from emergency medical care. Dentists and physicians know about germs, and soap, and can give me anesthesia. If I had to, I could get in my car and drive anywhere in North America in a matter of hours or days. If I absolutely had to, I could get on a plane and go almost anywhere in the world within hours or at most days. This is wealth beyond the wildest dreams of Caesar, or Herod, or Charlemagne, or Louis XIV, or Queen Victoria.

There is no immediate prospect of a hostile group or gang, or my own rulers, driving me out of my home, taking my stuff by force, or murdering me or my family. If I have a dispute, I have enforceable rights, though the system is far from perfect. I am in no immediate danger of attack for practicing my religion. I can possess lethal force to defend myself and my family. I can vote, speak, publish, protest, petition, assemble, meet and organize to have an impact on the government I live under, without much likelihood of personal danger. Political disagreements, even over matters of great consequence, rarely lead to blows. This is a level of freedom and security which has been known to a tiny fraction of one percent of the people who have ever lived.

I have gratitude to all who came before us and gave this to us. And there are many defects and failures and challenges ahead for us, and much of what we have could be lost, and some of it is in the process of being lost. But we have it good, and even better things are within our grasp. Let’s keep it going.

Worthwhile Viewing & Listening–special seasonal edition

Christmas photos from the 1920s

A wonderful 3-D representation of the Iglesia San Luis De Los Franceses. Just click on the link–then you can look around inside the cathedral. Use arrow keys or mouse to move left/right, up/down, and shift to zoom in, ctrl to zoom out.

Vienna Boys Choir, from Maggie’s Farm

A Romanian Christmas carol, from The Assistant Village Idiot

In the bleak midwinter, from The Anchoress

French Christmas carols

DC winter lights, an interesting series of photographs (from 2009) by AnoukAnge

Lappland in pictures, from Neptunus Lex

Shabbat lights, at Robert Avrech’s place

Snowflakes and snow crystals, from Cal Tech. Lots of great photos

A Very Modern Christmas

The hospital is dotted with Christmas trees: plastic green triangles, some tall and some small, in lobbies and resident rooms and offices. The lights twinkle, golden tinsel glitters, and little angels top the trees. And yet, every posted sign or printed document reads, “happy holidays!”. Easier that way, I suppose. Covers the lot.

Shopping in the neighborhood, I notice that rows of neat little Christmas trees, in shades of pale gray, are standing upright in oblong concrete planters lining the sidewalks. In summer, the planters hold flowers in every color imaginable. Now, in winter, the Christmas season, bright lights are strung around the oddly ethereal trees, shocking pink and blue and purple to contrast with the dove gray branches and silvery bows. From a distance, it looks like an 80s dance floor.

We will have our annual Christmas potluck lunch at work next Monday and food from every corner of the planet, seemingly, will grace the table. Freshly made hummus and pita, spicy fragrant curries and rice, baba ganoush sprinkled with pomegranate seeds, sesame noodles and eggrolls, home made Filipino Pancit, southern fried chicken, red beans and rice, pierogies, baked ham and chicken and salad and cookies and cakes. Well, that’s some of what we had last year I think. We’ll see about this year. The potluck menu rotates because, in a busy teaching hospital like ours, the staff rotates a lot too. It’s a very nice event and a chance to catch your breath during a busy work day, wish others well and a Merry Christmas, and remember just why it is that you chose to practice medicine. You wanted to help people and you wanted to do it in an environment that is warm and nurturing.

From the Pen of William Seward: One More Thanksgiving Message

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

 

Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

 

Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

 

The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

 

By the President of the United States of America.

 

A Proclamation.

 

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the  ever watchful  providence of almighty God.

 

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

 

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

 

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

 

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

 

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

 

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State

Frohes Erntedankfest!

Or in your vernacular, ‘Happy Thanksgiving!’ Either way, I am happy to second Helen’s good wishes.