Midlife Meditation

I'd like to believe I never really believed, but I know that's not the case. Like any child raised on the American Christmas tradition, I lived for this holiday. I delighted in every church, Scout, or school-sponsored party that featured an adult volunteer dressed as Santa, doling out goody bags, their disappointing contents (mostly peanuts, maybe a candy cane or two mixed in) offset by the understanding that this was just a foretaste of something much greater to come. At night, long after I should have been asleep, I heard the crinkle of wrapping paper as my parents prepared for the big day. Decorating the tree, Christmas carol sing-alongs were highlights, watching Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and Rudolph on our black-and-white TV, counting down on an Advent calendar, filling my nose with the aromas of holiday baking, gorging myself on fudge and divinity, until finally the longest agonizing day of the year arrived: Christmas Eve. If we had school that day--and I occasionally...

Yesterday I got a reprieve. To be more specific, a couple of months ago, in preparation for my first physical with my new Kaiser Permanente primary care doctor I submitted a stool sample. It was a minor icky inconvenience, and I thought little of it at the time. But then I got a note on my phone's Kaiser app that there was a message for me: a new test result. Opening the message, I learned that there was blood in the sample. I saw the doctor and talked with her about the test. I'd had a colonoscopy less than two years ago, and while some polyps were removed, they were benign, so she thought there was very little chance I had anything to worry about. Even so, she thought I'd better play it safe, and have another colonoscopy. So the day after Christmas, I did my prep: a liquid diet, massive doses of laxative, and I'll spare you the obvious details of what happened then. Friday morning, Amy drove me to the hospital, and I was speedily checked in, undressed, hooked...

You knew it was coming, that I couldn't stay in high dudgeon forever, that at some point my grinchy heart would grow three sizes and I'd be calling out "God bless us, everyone!" to anyone with ears. You knew it, and yet you said nothing. Jerks. But seriously, this happens every year: I start off like Ebeneezer Grinch, and just like said mashed up Christmas-hater, I wind up sledding down Mt. Crumpet to return all the merch, dancing in the streets of Victorian Whoville, carving the roast beast with the Cratchets, won over by the spirit that so often seems buried beneath packages, boxes, and bags. Things that won me over this year: My 500 Children:  One cannot teach and lead holiday singing in an elementary school without having some of their delight rub off on one. And one absolutely cannot do bus duty with kindergartners wearing a Santa hat and maintain a gruff attitude toward the jolly old elf. When they glommed onto me at the door, wrapping their little bodi...

You know the story of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," but I'm going to retell it anyway: Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly moneychanger, is visited on Christmas Eve by four ghosts: his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, who warns him that his stinginess will doom him to a life and afterlife of loneliness and pain; the ghost of Christmas past, who shows him through a montage of memories how he became the man he is; the ghost of Christmas present, who shows him how some are rejoicing at Christmas, while others suffer, all of them grieving or berating the coldness of his heart; and the ghost of Christmas future, a silent specter who shows him how little time he has left, and what a miserable end he will come to, due to his solitary selfishness. The shock of the experience changes him into a man of love and generosity, and both he and the world are better for the transformation. It's been told and retold, performed on stage, filmed, animated, digitized, updated, g...