I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, about “How The Movies Invented Christmas” https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-movies-invented-christmas-11545321446?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2

… It makes a case for how the movies, along with Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” really defined a secular Christmas, and then planted an image in our minds of what Christmas is and what it means.  The ironic beauty of it, is that even if you are not Christian, you can still enjoy that break from the darkness of the world and enjoy the spirit of giving, joy of Christmas, as if there is an intrinsic Christ gift through the employ of believers, and non-believers alike to bring His message of hope and love to the world.

Christmas Imagined

It is the spirit, it is love and care

That joy of Christmas we can share

For a moment a world perfect

Free from discord and defect

Placed in winter clarity of white

Snow as a blanket of beauty right

Colored lights, gifts, decorations red and green

Borrowed from ancients, this spirit of evergreen

A perfect setting for redeeming ourselves

For believing in each other and Santa’s elves

For knowing Angel’s get their wings

When hearts sing and the bell rings

And a child’s birth allows the world to cope

As the child in us smiles with wonder and hope

Everyone regardless of their belief can openly share

Our Christmas miracle, by opening hearts of loving care

A Violent New Day Dawning

Like a wolf in the night

Wind is howling

Driving rain, sounds like a handful of pebbles thrown at the windows

It’s morning dark, very dark but a noisy dark

Then it stops for just a light sprinkle

A tingling spray dancing on the windows

Only for the next wolf to howl

As the gales of winter blow

Perform as an orchestra in a crescendo

And rhythm of a heart plays

It howls at darkness of worry and concern

It throws stones at that which interrupts

The bliss and beauty of morning star

Then to settle back to a rhythm

A calmness of confident peace

That all that is good will be right

There are no more wolves in the night

That joy and peace of mind will prevail

The darkness never lasts, and love is right

The sun rises, and calms the air

The beauty and glow of new day extraordinaire

The sky is orange this morning, clouds masking sunrise, indicating rain.

My joints are sore, indicating rain.

Of course I took a fall at breakfast in the morning yesterday.  They mop the floor at the entrance, or exit.  Why isn’t there one word for in and out?  Anyway, I was leaving when I slipped and fell… They obviously used the same mop they clean the kitchen with to clean the exit area.  I go there no more than once a week, cause the grease at McDonald’s will kill you one way or the other.

I’ve got a song in my head.  Dumb song by Mott the Hoople…

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news…

Where you paying attention in the 70’s?

Well it’s raining… told you!

Christmas party last night, what a range of conversations.  Everything from football, golf, glory days, philosophy, calculus, and travel.  Oh and a lively conversation about guys leaving the lid up on the toilet… geez men, just put the seat down, it’s the right thing to do!

I was asked by Sam, can I prove God exists mathematically, right after I was describing how we have the ability to represent our world mathematically…  No sorry I cannot prove God exists mathematically.  Maybe I needed more math education.  However, I can realize that the world can be represented and modeled and simulated using mathematics, and of course physics.  We are certainly the first creatures in this world’s history that can do that and harvest this knowledge for our own comfort and enjoyment.  Also likely, the first that can contemplate both our own mortality and the brevity of our existence with respect to the enormity of time and the cosmos.

Which brings me to an article I was reading, that suggest that man also is the only creature to evolve religion to help explain our existence, and more importantly deal with this realization of brevity and mortality.   Makes sense.  There must be something more, because without something more we would conclude life is futile and such a decision is not productive nor logical.  So God, to use our english judeo christian name, is the best and most logical alternative.  This is the best I can do to use math and physics to understand the existence, but never explain God.

So I was also reading about quantum physics and relativistic physics and the search for tying the equations of each into a single cohesive theory and the beautiful math to go with it.  If you watch Big Bang over the last decade, then you know that the search has been focused on one idea, called string theory.  Maybe it’s out of our reach, but the fact that we can imagine that there is an explanation yet to be described and represented, can only mean that there is higher order, and higher spirit that has ordered our minds in a way to seek that truth.

There is a proven miracle called quantum entanglement, that shows (in short) that two sub-atomic particles that if created together as twins can share experiences even at massive distances simultaneously.   Thus some force exists between them that operates much faster than the speed of light to communicate.  Fascinating.  We may not fully understand this phenomenon, but we may have the ability to harness this capability… and appreciate its existence!

And why does a song get stuck in our minds?

 

 

 

A Fire Named Chico

 

It begins so very small

   hidden, no problem no name

Spark from a mower,

   careless campfire

Seldom lightning but matters not,

   till the Santa Anna’s blow like a hurricane

 

Winds, dry from the desert

    fueling, fanning the fire

Moving with speed

    agility that cannot be imagined

Suddenly upon you

    heart stopping, situation dire

 

Of course, now it will be named,

    the news brings viewers

Plundering the countryside

    taking property, killing hundreds, maybe more

The Chico fire, has been named

   so now valiantly it can be tamed

 

Fighters fight, and sometimes die

    saving families flee

Paradise lost, dream destroyer,

    exhaustion and loss of property

     a suffering that lives on

As viewers we’re stunned by all that we see

 

And yet nonsense of all nonsense

   it will be fixed, we are told

Greatest climate we’ll have,

   if only they’d rake the leaves

A chance to united and support

   lost to a deal that must be sold

 

Those in Chico’s way

  care not about politics and news

As the fire is tamed and they are forgotten

  until mud-slides inevitably came

And paradise is reminded again

  about democratic blues

 

God bless those that will suffer

   for they will suffer long

They will be put to test of recovery

  of insurance, of health, by Chico

Long after the news and politicians care

  about what went wrong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Star on His Forehead

Little boy what is your future, what will you be?

You should know there’s a big, big world for you to see

You should know all the potential of your heart and mind

Of learning, ingenuity, passion and love you will find

Someday you’ll wonder at this picture, and yet you’ll know

As you gaze upon your own children and the potential that they show

It’s only right that you should wish they go so very far

As surely as we have wished for you, our self-anointed star

 

Grape Vines

 

Lives are intertwined as grape vines

Producing beautiful fruit so sweet

Family, friends, enjoying life’s fine wines

 

Celebrate memories and peaceful images

Be thankful for present and future blessings

Blended together into ever finer vintages

 

Seedlings that are not of family protected

With multiplying force of intertwinement

Will be the fruit that birds and vermin have selected

 

Sure, there will be difficulties, freeze or drought

But value remains and ever possible to retain

With strength these loving vines have brought

 

May we be a positive force, joyful and thankful

Be fun and hold tight the intertwine of love ones

Thankful for life’s wine, complex and insightful

 

Calculus

The natural world is bereft of straight lines

and sharp corners of geometric shapes

Rather we live in a world rounded, shaded

We live in a world of gravitational acceleration

Holding us in this place, or propelling us in space

We travel, we live in a world of curves, waves, and motion

The language of calculus opens our understanding

Allowing us to derive the rate of change of motion, and

Furthermore the rate of change of the rate of change

We can describe and approximate the waves

We know how to use integration to determine

The area of irregular shapes and the curves we travel

All our real world is alive with the beauty of math

And those that learn calculus, the language of love

They then have laid open the secrets of our world 

And will take us to the future, and future worlds!

 

 

Infinity

It is forever and the set of everything

Equally, it exists as infinitesimal divisions

Of time between one and nothing

 

 

They Died at Belleau

 

Toward the guns they ran

All patriots to the last man

Dying as a million bullets flew

Fighting in the woods of Belleau

A century ago, the great war

They came to fight from afar

Inconvenienced in a great way

1800 died in the woods that day

Yet today’s leader wouldn’t face the rain

So, he sent others to salute without shame

An inconvenient 100-mile motorcade

To lay a wreath for those still there today