Some days you eat the bear

And some days the bear eats you.
I always have napkins, to cover any eventuality.

As we head for The Holidays (mental, if not actual, capital letters expected), we (or at least, I) start to lose sight of the reason for the season and regard this time of year as just another obstacle to be cleared, another steeple-chase to be run, another 'thing' to be gotten through.

I'm not alone. I saw lots of grumpy and frumpy folks out in the stores yesterday wondering 'what the heqq are all these people doing out here shopping today while I'm shopping?' I was, and am, another obliviot alone on my exercise wheel alongside the other human hamsters, chasing the pellets I want for Thanksgiving dinner and a head start on the Christmas gift lists.

It's a cliche, I know, but that doesn't make it less true: we are blessed as a society. We really do throw away more of everything than most other people on earth have had, or will ever have. And yet, given the chance, we cry for the moon and the stars and cry even louder when we all we receive is the sun. Is it possible our greed grows exponentially as our needs grow arithmetically? How much is enough and how much more is too much?

Did The Lord give us two hands so we could take as much as we could grab and two pockets to put it all in? And how are we supposed to say a prayer of thanks when our mouths are full?
-bill kenny