Sometimes I take myself and the minor problems in my life too seriously. Certainly we all have challenges, obstacles and roadblocks and some are insurmountable, but overall we just put one foot in front of the other it all works out. If you are a believer like me in the end we receive our just reward with our Creator in Heaven. I am wont to wallow in my grief, and unable at times to realize the insignificance of our problems but for the most part I can stay in the moment and be happy..

  Usually just passing by a homeless person on the street, witnessing an accident or some other tragedy can snap me back to reality and make me realize the gift that has been given me. For one, I was recently married to a high school sweetheart that has changed my life in a dramatic way. Sometimes all I have to is to look into the faces of my children and realize all is right with the world. I have friends scattered across the country, endless opportunities and quite frankly right now I have all one could ask for.

   This is the season of thanksgiving, the season of receiving and the season of giving. Take a minute and look around and see what you have been given no matter how trivial. Give thanks for the gifts you have been given, and above all give back those gifts to others. No other season matches this one. Let us not squander it, but use it in the way it is meant to be. Reach out to old friends, give to those less fortunate and most of all be able to receive the gift given to you, life, love, and salvation. Accept this gift from me, my friendship, my help whenever I can give it, my love for you as a fellow human being and the hope that this next year is better than the last, full of joy, love and success. Give this same gift to others and watch it come back to you.

   These are really all we have to give each other. This year let us give these gifts in abundance and with sincerity. Share what we have, rejoice in the chance that we can still have peace on Earth and good will toward men. Do not give up on the dream of happiness, wealth and abundance no matter how you measure it. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and may you all be blessed with what you need and want.

   It is the holiday season now in the United States and most other countries of the world. During this time of year we here in the States and others abroad celebrate with thanksgiving for what we have and celebrate a gift that we were given. It is during this time that many people will travel to what, or gather in what they call "home." I have begun to wonder exactly what constitutes this place we hold dear, this place we are drawn to, or draw others to for celebrations, for remembrances, for feasts and fasts, for safety and for love. You will have to bear with me on this one as I may wander through my somewhat self-constructed belief system founded on my knowledge and faith.

   I am a believer. I believe in God the Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe as I have wet my beak in the knowledge of physics and math and as a history major in college that the existence of the Trinity is irrefutable. Bear with me please as I am not proselytising, but rather trying to describe something that we see as a place, something we feel we can go to and leave at will. To me this place exists inside each of us. It does not stand on a street or quiet boulevard. It is a gift we have been given and it is at this time of year that we give thanks for this gift and in return try as best we can to give this gift to others. For me I have come to realize that home is truly where the heart is. I know that sounds trite and cliche. However, in my experience and analysis and from what I know to be true and what I believe, we have been given a home that is not made of bricks and mortar, or of plaster and wood. We have been given a home that is a construct of love and faith, of salvation and peace. We only have to look inward to find it.

   As a child of divorce and having been married and divorced more than once, as a person who has been through some of the worst natutal disasters to strike the country I have seen all the material things that I owned, all the walls that protected me, the roof that sheltered me, shattered and washed away both figuratively and literally. I have found myself standing awestruck by the swiftness that what I once thought was mine, that what I once thought was eternal simply vanished and was gone, out of reach and forever and inexorably changed. I have shed countless tears and wasted many days trying to recover and regain the material things that I thought made up what was my home. Things that no matter how many times I reacquirred were easily lost again, things that I thought defined me and defined my "home".

   As I sit here today writing this I know I am home and wherever I am I will always be home. I hold home in my heart, in the faces of my children, in the memories of my paraents and theirs before them. I hold home in the memory of friends once known and now gone, in the knowledge of friends here now and those yet to enter my life. My home is the gratitude I have in my heart for all that has been given to me, for all of those people who have fed me, that I have fed and those who through our shared grief have consoled each other and shared a commonality that cannot be denied or taken away.

   We have the capacity to give and receive love and we must be adept at doing both. For only through being able to receive can we give back and we must give back to keep that which has been given. That is our home. That is my home. I have a home forever in me that can never be taken from me or swept away. My home is a place of love for all who dwell in it and a place of safety and joy, gladness and celebration for myself and those who visit. Sometimes my home is messy and in dire need of repair, but I have been given the tools to rebuild it no matter what assails it. It has room for infinite love and has as much to give. I will try to protect it and keep it, to honor it and strengthen it and welcome all who enter and my hope for everyone is that they have the same. A place to always dwell in love and peace and call home.

    I had the need to go through some of my old documents the other day. Those pieces of paper that define us, that tell our story, those papers by which the State validates our existence and our journey through life. Having been married to some compulsive women and thanks to my mother I am fortunate enough to have most everything that validated my journey from birth to the present. I had a specific document in mind when I started, but before long that was lost in the remembrance both bitter and sweet that these pieces of pressed pulpwood brought forth.

   Like an old song, the smell of a favorite dish, or the particular feel of a given day I was being taken back down the road that I still travel.. It is a strange thing about traveling backwards in time. The trip is linear and there are no forks, no clouds and everything is clear and present, sharp and painful. At times it is soft and inviting to find that one particular memory and wrap yourself in it for the moment and then release it back to breeze that blows against us as we move forward. The road forward is is never downhill and there are innumerable forks. Unlike the road behind us the road forward cannot be glimpsed but at each step and the next step is just over the rise and cannot be seen. As humans we press on as long as we are able. Some lose strength and stop to rest, never to take the journey up again, only to become a piece of paper in the stack of memories to those that knew them.

   Strange how that search for a particularly important piece of paper morphed into a meditation yet once again on my life and the lives of those around me. Some still here and others resting under a shade tree farther back down the round than I care to think about, still visible, still able to be seen, but never met on the path we still walk. These meditations and memories serve to strengthen my resolve and bring me back to the path ahead. Too many times in the past few years I have been tempted to stop, to take seat for just a minute and rest. Maybe just to catch my breath and let my tired aching feet take a break.

   But I don't. I can't. I remember all of those who did that and will not see today, be in this moment, see the sunrise or set again. I am not being maudlin or morose. I am not morbidly obsessed with the loss of those once loved and held dear I am just living. I resolve to keep the gift given to me and from this moment and every moment going forward to cherish the gift and receive it as it was intended. For me to live, for me to experience and share. From now on I will not hold back and I will allow myself to receive the precious gift of each moment. I resolve also to share it...with someone, to allow love in and to allow love out to others. As I press on, behind me scattered in the wind are a stack of papers that mean nothing. They do not validate me...I do, my life does and believe it or not as you cross my path or walk with me for a while we will validate each other with gift that has been given us.