The New Year Cometh...

... and cometh, and cometh.  

On Sunday last, one of my random thoughts concerned the chronological coming of the New Year. I wondered where the New Year first arrives on our earth, at least according to the present global time-keeping system, international date lines and such. The answer may be found in the following link, should one care (or even be curious) about such things. http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/firstnewyear.html

Google is a wonderful tool, although careful perusal of a world globe with proper attachments could provide the same information.  (does anyone have a globe anymore?)

Should one be so inclined, and have a generous supply of "bubbly" or other celebratory beverage on hand,  one might begin to celebrate the coming of the new year by lifting a glass, in absentia, with the residents of Christmas Island.  Then one could continue to celebrate, on the hour, every hour, with other Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia, the Far Eastern countries, Asia, Europe, the British Isles, Greenland and the mid-Atlantic, and, if still awake and able to stand, one's local time zone in the US of A. 


Tomorrow is also a day... and New Year's Day (somewhere).

Brief Thoughts Following Christmas Dinner

There are both positive and negative consequences of having Christmas dinner at someone else's home --

Upside: there are no leftovers for which you must find space in the 'frig.

Downside: there are no leftovers.

Tomorrow is also a day.

A Christmas Meditation

No one can celebrate

a genuine Christmas

without being truly poor.

The self-sufficient, the proud,

those who, because they have

everything, look down on others,

those who have no need

even of God -- for them there 

will be no Christmas.

Only the poor, the hungry,

those who need someone

to come on their behalf,

will have that someone.

That someone is God.

Emmanuel. God-with-us.

Without poverty of spirit

there can be no abundance of God.

     -- Oscar Romero

To any and all those who might happen to come across this post, I wish you a blessed Christmas.