12/06 3eme semaine/ 3rd week

Cette semaine, nous avons eu la chance d'avoir le fameux train "Polar Express" s'arreter devant notre porte pour nous emmener au pole nord.
En verite, nous avons brave le mauvais temps qui regnait dans l'Arizona du nord, pour aller a Williams, a cote de Flagstaff. Dommage, il etait prevu d'y aller en C172, mais avec seulement 1000' de plafond et averse de neige, il fut plus prudent de sortir la voiture, une fois n'est pas coutume!
Nous sommes donc monter a 6500' d'altitude, une temperature de -13C, et marcher dans la neige, entre les pins, et ma fois, c'etait sympa.
Pour le prix, nous avions droit a un dinner, la chambre d'hotel au "Grand Canyon Railway", et petit dejeuner le lendemain. Rendez vous au depot de train, la ou partent les memes pour le Grand Canyon, une visite qui sera surement a faire aussi, bien que c'est evidement mieux en avion quand meme... La, un wagon de 1923 nous attendait, ainsi que d'autres passagers avec gamins a la file, parce que c'est vrai qu'il faut quand meme croire au pere Noel pour le faire ce truc la. Apres cookies et chocolat chaud, nous sommes arrive au pole nord. Vu le givre au carreaux, je ne le doutais pas!
Le pere Noel est descendu de son traineau, pour monter dans le train et nous dire bonjour, ce qui est quand meme sympa, vu qu'a quelques jours avant Noel, j'imagine qu'il est plutot occupe le gaillard.
La semaine prochaine, c'est retour au boulot. et j'y reste jusqu'au 1er janvier, alors joyeuses fete a tous, et bonne annee 2007!


Christmastime

Christmas evokes many things for many people. For some, they humbug their way through the Holidays, making constant effort to point out that this time of year in America is just an excuse to spend, splurge and spoil. For others, Christmastime is a time to relive old, childhood memories, of gifts and cheer, of laughter and bright, twinkling lights, of sweet carols playing softly as they drift in and out of slumber, an ear cocked just slightly in hopes of hearing Santa’s sleigh. And for others, Christmastime is the most holy of times, the moment of greatest rejoice for the gift that was brought to the world in the form of Christ. Whatever your bent or denomination, everyone has an opinion about Christmas.

And it is during this time, too, that we tend to hear, in songs and, perhaps, inside our own heart, of a secret wish for peace on Earth. It is a common sentiment this time of year, one elicited in what can only be called blind faith or ignorant bliss, wherein the constant onslaught of woeful tails bestowed to us from around the world via the Internet can only allow us this conclusion. But regardless whether your wish for peace stems from faith or folly, no matter how seemingly fruitless a dream, it does not cease to make the wish a worthless one. Indeed, it can make it the most precious wish of all.

And, so, here in this year of 2006 A.D., well into the new millennium, why is it that over the vast years of humanity we have failed to see a ceasing of hostilities? Why is it that human nature seems to persist, despite our best wishes, to be her own worst enemy, her own worst nightmare come true? Why does such a deeply held wish, a universal yearning for peace on Earth, so simple in its basic form, seem so illusive to the point where believing in God for an atheist seems more likely than the coming of peace on Earth?

Should we give up, like a patient deemed un-savable by the best doctors? Should we abandon hope, like a parent facing a debilitating disease in their child? And do we forfeit the front lines to Evil, like the campaign of terror Hitler attempted to reign on the world? Are there some fights too complex, too exhaustive, too expansive, too drenched in blood that we can never raise our collective heads back to daylight – back to hope? Indeed, do we surrender?

For some, they would not extol a full surrender but an acceptance of the nature of humanity – to toil, to exploit, to destroy. After all, you cannot change the basic nature of a beast. And, thus, we learn to accept people as they are, not as we wish they would be. For in seeking good against the odds, there is effort, there is struggle, and there is hope which may not find seed, and in facing our failure we may feel worse than having never tried at all. But yet, something in these arguments rings hollow, akin to shallow excuses made by a child.

Hollow indeed, for humanity demonstrates on a daily basis its basic, persistent unwillingness to “just accept” in its constant effort to better, to improve, to solve. Against the odds. Against our nature. Yet bedside to hope, we do not surrender.

So, I say, there is solution to the oldest of problems. Yet, just as God required seven days and nights to create and world and all it’s creatures so, too, can we not create peace on Earth in a day. But that does not mean we cannot create it. Moreover, it does not mean we should not strive to create it. Yet, how do we create peace?

I am not a politician. I am not a statesman or a doctor of world events. I do not know of, moreover understand, the nature and workings of all nations and all peoples on Earth. But I do know one thing. If I look to stop a flood from taking my home, I must stop it on the plot of land next to my house, and the plot next to that, and the plot next to that, and the plot next to that. And so on, and so on, and so on. And in making crusade against this flood on each separate plot of land, the collective becomes a protected home. And in this same way we can make crusade for peace, in taking action in our own home, one person, one moment at a time. For just as a person is the sum of their actions, so is a world the sum of all the people on Earth. And so, the question becomes - how will you create peace?

This is your most critical hour. You have been granted time – a most precious, irreplaceable gift. And inside the walls of your own essence you are leader. Just as the leader of a country has power to make war or peace, so do you have power over yourself to foster love or threat. So as a world leader has power to bring hope and charity to its citizens, so do you have power to lay your hands on another in mercy or merciless fervor. You can chose to act in self-indulgent ignorance, pushing darkness and distrust wherever you find occasion, or you can push to give knowledge where no light exists. The choice is yours.

Do not make excuses of the complexities of life, telling tails of woe, of trials and error. Do not tell how life’s winds have tossed you about, and that you are but a victim of the fate laid before you and of the fiends of your past. A being is not but a mirror of their experiences, but a reflection of their own heart. We are the purveyors of kingdoms, the builders of skyscrapers, the layers of pathways to the moon. And just as we can give rise to great buildings and machines which command the sky, so, too, can we give rise in another hope which reaches not only today, but all their tomorrows.

It may be that we chose to ignore the pathways to internal growth because it is easier to toil to build a skyscraper than to work against the person we have allowed ourselves to become, a person who stands so distant from the light of hope and love. Indeed, Ebenezer fought forcefully against the ghosts that visited him that fateful night. But just as the child in the cancer ward, the soldier arising from the waves of Normandy’s beaches, and the sole survivor of a campaign in terror, we can chose. To surrender or to fight the good fight.

Fifty-eight million people died around the world in 2005. You were not one of them. I, personally, have known people who have overcome horrendous odds, battled horrid experiences, been pitted without defenses against constant enemies, yet who have not only survived but thrived – to give hopes and dreams to others.

You are alive! The hour is upon you. What shall this day, this hour, this moment say of how you see life? Will you be life’s victim or life’s victor? Shall you shed light that shines like an ever present star, or shall you supernova and cause to burn all those around you?

Dare to hope. Dare to dream. Dare to inspire. Give rise to silliness. Grant welcome hands to a stranger. Now is the time of Christmas and it can, too, be your most precious time.

Merry Christmas