Jackson's Actions

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire. --Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) <

Oh dear, I struggle so with the holidays--and tomorrow starts it all for a continuous flow until Jan 2nd. Dread, dread, dread!!!

HOWEVER, it is 72 degrees outside in Asheville, N.C. The colors of the trees are a blur of red, yellow, brown (or the skeletons of those already stripped)--with the dead curls of leaves (raining on the windshields as we drive,)wafting against a bright blue, cloudless sky. In short, it is just gorgeous. And I think again how grateful I am to be who I am and to be here.

I think about our poor kids in Iraq.

I think about the AIDs epidemics and the hunger epidemics and the ethnic cleansings
and the cyclones, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes, the poverty, crime, misery and murder going on all over the world--and I can only shake my head at my remarkable and inexplicable good fortune to be who I am and to be here.

I do not have money to give away.

I am not inclined toward activism for good causes.

I am not someone, like so many I know, who makes a difference in this world.

I am not even guilty. I did not ask to be here, and I shall try to leave here knowing I have tried to do the right things in my life.

But if I am anything, anything at all, it is grateful. Utterly, shamelessly, and ridiculously grateful!!

May you and yours have a wonderful, love-filled, safe and healthy holiday.

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