Thoughts on Christmas involving hope and despair, multa inter alia. Do not read this if you plan to enjoy a 100% optimistic Christmas!

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I am not going to dampen the Holiday spirit by listing all the evils plaguing society here and around the world. Around the world.

Where is it "safe"?

Among the South Pacific Islands that are sinking because of global warming, surrounded by an ocean that is becoming more and more polluted each day?

Is the world more dangerous than it's ever been?

I think that it's always been dangerous. The media choose which dangers to emphasize, of course, but I'd say the biggest dangers plaguing society are the environmental holocaust as well as the lack of gun control in the United States. The statistics are hair-raising--how many gun murders occur here as opposed to terrorist murders around the globe?

And there is the immigration crisis and sanctions being initiated against Russia. Merry Christmas.

*****

So I went onto Google to find out why we say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Christmas," an extremely accessible subject: "Happy" is used among the British and "Merry" here, replete with connotations of getting plastered during the holidays. That's why, according to my Google source, Queen Elizabeth II uses "Happy Christmas" routinely.

Getting plastered over the holidays is a great solution to the fear meme being perpetrated by the Republican presidential campaign. Indeed, there is much to fear and lament over.

There is still love. That's what Christmas is all about. Love and hope and generosity--the birth of a child who will take all of our sins upon his slender shoulders, a Messiah, the Messiah--but why couldn't He transcend human nature as Son of God?

Others have answers. I have questions. He is reborn each year, despite everything pulling toward death and destruction.

Yesterday I found out that in Afghanistan the people are driven to burn their own garbage to heat their homes and are becoming diseased from the pollution this forces them to inhale. ISIS recruits the men forcefully for a salary of $300 a month. This was a report from a member of the U.S. military who just returned from there.

*****

The issues preoccupying me are not as simple as hope vs. fear or even hope coexisting with fear. I can no more analyze everything swirling around in my mind than I can hope for solutions, though there are some, probably beyond us.

Is "probably" the crux of my impasse?

War is taking over.

Peace is offering answers: disarm ISIS by seizing all of their assets, a labyrinth that may become clear and maybe we don't want to know about.

Some people blame the CIA for ISIS.

The solution to this swill pile? The kind of love we need is just not up for grabs.

So I'll get selfish and get plastered, for a few occasions anyway.

Pray, try to maintain my hope that the next generation will supply feasible solutions, and live my life, one day at a time.

Of course, I know of people who ignore the MSM, let alone other news sources that are more accurate. Escapists, maybe the happiest people among us all.

I can't join them.

Just do what I can, living from one day to the next, loving to the best of my ability, and . . .

Merry Christmas.

I said I wasn't going to dampen the Christmas spirit. Did I?

(Article changed on December 24, 2015 at 13:22)

Authors Website: http://www.wordsunltd.com

Authors Bio:

Marta Steele is an author/editor/blogger who has been writing for Opednews.com since 2006. She is also author of the 2012 book "Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, 2000-2008" (Columbus, Free Press) and a member of the Election Integrity movement since 2001. Her original website, WordsUnLtd.com, first entered the blogosphere in 2003. She recently became a senior editor for Opednews.com. She has in the past taught college and worked as a full-time as well as freelance reporter. She has been a peace and election integrity activist since 1999. Her undergraduate and graduate educational background are in Spanish, classical philology, and historical and comparative linguistics. Her biography is most recently listed in "Who's Who in America" 2019 and in 2018 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Who's Who.