This year’s Christmas Card Story is later than usual, although many of you hold to the romantic notion that they never make it out before Easter Sunday anyway. Fair enough! And my guarantee is that always I get it to you by the 4th of July! 🙂

But this year, perhaps like me, you have found the past eight weeks to be a bit unsettling. I find that the Creative Process cannot but be affected by all that’s going on in the world.

I had a Christmas Story for you close to being ready by the 31st of January, but by then the world had changed so much that I was compelled to scrap it and write this one. And, as a writer friend likes to say, “The story comes when it comes.” So, it took a bit more time this year.

As our society has become increasingly conditioned to only giving time for 160 characters or less, please consider the short story format in which these ideas are presented.

Today is the Ides of March. Oye! That, too…

Yet, perhaps today is the perfect day, in this final week of winter, to give yourself a break for an hour, cozy up with a mug of tea, hot cocoa, or your favorite warm beverage, and just enjoy taking this journey back in time.

Please receive this as the gift that it is intended — an offering of encouragement and inspiration — perhaps it will serve to motivate you to take action toward your vision for a better world, whatever that may be. At the very least, I hope it will serve to remind you that we have been here before, and we have come through it all right.

May the Blessings of this Season of Kindness and Inclusivity be yours every day!

A Thrill Of Hope

By Arnold J. Mungioli

Impenetrable darkness blanketed the stars – there was nothing left to wish upon, the moon never rose that night, and the sky felt like an ominous black expanse of hopelessness. This was the Judea of King Herod.

Suddenly, a blazing light arose in the sky irradiating the land, sea and the air itself. It brought to a halt everything the people had suffered their whole life long – despair, despondency, doom, and the lack of light – all dispelled in a moment! It needed to be let go of – all of it — as something new had now ignited! This light both defined and defied the darkness!

Every person, be they shepherd, townsfolk, innkeeper, tax collector, or king, felt a deep chill to the bone. Oh, God, what now? But, for those who stood still and bathed in the glow of this light, something else welled up inside them – a thrill of hope!

One must consider the landscape upon which hope appeared that night. A society living in despondency for generations, giving birth to people who survive without dreams, who go on to rear children without hope – and then quite suddenly they all at once experience what it means when “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – a thrill of hope!

Herod was an asshole! It had been a gloomy time since the dissolution of the Hasmonean Dynasty, and the ushering in of his newly declared Herodian Dynasty. Herod had been king for some 37 years, now. What a vitriolic buffoon!

Spiteful. Petty. Vindictive. Cowardly. Cruel. And Viciously Crafty.

He had no interest in protecting the people over whom he ruled – only in what he could take from them. His need for attention was insatiable. A narcissistic sociopath, the people’s lives were so much the worse for his being in office at all.

And the people would pray from the Ketuvim, the Writings section of the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 109:8…”May his days be few; may another take his office.” That’s in the Bible!