December 3, 2023- This day sees the tumult of the Christmas season, and all the interplay between materialism and spirituality come to the fore. The plethora of appeals to share one’s real and imagined wealth has come and gone-or at least run out of dedicated days for one aspect of materialism or another. The liturgical aspect of the season, though, has begun for Catholics and other Christians, with this first Sunday of Advent. So, we may expect more caroling-hopeful voices adding to calls for peaceful resolution of the Israel-Hamas conflict, a move towards rebuilding Gaza and an end to displacement of people-anywhere, for the benefit of a chosen few. We may also expect resistance. What privileged class has ever gone quietly into that good night?

By the above, I note the Iranian clerics and their Revolutionary Guards, as well as the West Bank settlers. I note the raiders who attack the people of Darfur, the “monks” who still harass the Rohingya people of Myanmar and all those who amass fortunes, at the expense of the working people. Where is the evidence that any of you have been wronged by those you assail? Savaging the weak and helpless is no guarantee that you will achieve your goals in perpetuity. There is a place for you in the world, but only if you cease and desist your greed-based, power-hungry depredations.

It is a quiet Advent, as the survivors of the MIndanao earthquake and the Wrangell landslide assess their losses and mourn those who didn’t make it out of the wreckage. It is a cheery day for some elsewhere, including three friends who went to a Baha’i wedding in Manila. It is a calm day for me, with a nice breakfast at Post 6, a devotional online and three sets of leg lifts at Planet Fitness. The most important part, though, was reading nineteen pages of an interesting and hopeful letter from our Universal House of Justice. Upshot: We will make it through whatever is headed our way, provided we stick together and don’t let ego delude us.