Merry Christmas!

Tomorrow, that is.  It's a fairly safe bet I won't be posting tomorrow.  The past few years, let's face it, it's a fairly safe bet that I won't be posting on pretty well any particular day.  The few things I have to say, I've said too many times, and I'm boring even myself.

Tonight, at my church's Christmas Eve service, the small choir in which I sing will be performing a Joseph Martin cantata, "The Winter Rose."  (Look on YouTube -- there's all kinds of videos or performances by big choirs, with orchestras and dancers and all.  That's not us -- we're a dozen or so voices, accompanied by piano.)  It's an odd thing ... we've been rehearsing this at the weekly choir practice for a few months now, but as the time gets closer, I'm finding it more and more difficult to sing my part, here and there, because my voice wants to choke up and I want to kind of tear up.  I need to try to get a good grip on myself this evening, because there's only three of us singing bass, and it isn't good if one-third of the bass kind of drops out for a phrase or two.

This is, in many ways, an ugly and frightening world in which we live.  And this blog tends to focus, almost exclusively, on that sort of thing.  I do not apologize for that -- I think we Americans, in particular, tend to be fed (in the information sense) on dangerous crapola and myths that serve bad purposes, to which the only possible antidote amounts to angry shouting.  But God is real, and He is good, and I love Him ... not as I should, and not as would be ordinate to His nature; but in my small, cold, poor way, I do.  Let's love each other.  Let's be Christ to each other.  And a merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!