In this Holiday season, I am more much more “thanks” and much less “giving”. I am truly thankful that we no longer live in the Twin Cities, where the pace of gunfire homicides and maimings grows with each passing week.  When I hear a shot now, it is a duck hunter on the river, not a drive-by execution or convenience store hold up gone wrong.  So far.

 

I am truly thankful to not yet have been translated into a cloud of sub-atomic particles from a nuclear exchange with Russia, China or a Player-to-be-Named-Later nation due to escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.  With our aircraft mixing in with carrier-based French and Russian bombers, each gleefully blasting each other’s rival groups on the ground, things could happen.  Like, Turkey (a member of that pesky NATO gang) shooting down a Russian aircraft.  I am always mindful that Russian President (Tsar?) Putin (always sounded like “puddin’” when Bill Clinton said it) is a former high-ranking KGB officer, a service in which promotion only came with total ruthless dedication to the lethal job at hand.  Watch this space.

 

And, bear in mind that all this is happening within a stones’ throw of the little city of Megiddo, which the Bible tells us will be the jumping-off place for Armageddon, the true “End of Days” that brings about the “Great Tribulation”.

 

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.  Do justice now.  Walk humbly now.  You are not obligated to complete the work.  But neither are you free to abandon it.”  So says the Talmud. 

 

And in 2 Timothy 3:1-4, the Bible says: “There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”  This sounds familiar, sad to admit.

 

And then there is Paris.  If this is the tipping point, and the world gets together and drives a stake through the black heart of ISIS, then I am thankful.  That beautiful gray chateau on the right of the screen at the center of the Place de la Republique, where the news is showing the latest memorial to the murdered, that happens to be the Holiday Inn®.  I know this because we had the pleasure of staying there on a visit to the City of Lights several years ago.

 

I don’t know if “Smiling Jacques” still has his little stand on that street, a tiny open-front brassiere wedged between two big hotels where he served up hot croque monsieur and cold Heinekkens® to the late-night trade.

 

He had a deep scar on one side of his face, but I don’t think that is the reason he didn’t smile much.  A photo of his younger self in the uniform of an elite parachute regiment was propped up above the counter, with a medal on a ribbon attached.  You got the impression that this was a man who had seen a lot of what the world could do, and was not favorably impressed.

 

I’ve asked around, but nobody who has been there recently remembered seeing him.  If he is still there, I will be thankful for that.

 

The only “giving” I will do is in the free advice department.  The “Human Experiment” appears to be failing both at home and abroad, and we would do well to contemplate a change in our approach before Nature steps in and does it for us.

 

Happy Holidays.