We got a piece of mail last week that said “Seasonal Greetings!” on the envelope, which somehow sounds even more generic than “season’s greetings”. And look, I’m definitely not somebody who gets bent out of shape over whether people say “Merry Christmas” or not, but to me the word “seasonal” barely even acknowledges that some people, somewhere, might be having a season that usually carries a special type of greeting with it. Way to hedge your bets, there!
Very pleased to report that my Christmas Spirit feels much more alive and well this year. We’ve started decorating a little, I’m exploring holiday-themed music I haven’t heard before, and generally I’m looking forward to things. It’s not all perfect — I do feel like I’m spinning a lot of plates with regard to my church involvements, and if I think too hard about those I get pretty anxious. (Our Christmas program is on the 16th and I have a few different roles within that). I don’t really think there’s a need to be anxious, as in, I believe that my thinking gets very distorted very quickly about these things. There’s still time to practice and prepare, and there’s no reason to think that I will Drop All The Balls. The topic is something I just have to be careful around.
Okay but in general things are going well right now. Reasonably well. I think? Oh boy.
One last bit of news is that I’m going in for jury selection on Monday, which in our part of Canada seems like a rare thing and I’m…really looking forward to it? I think it’s going to be interesting. If I’m selected, the trial is scheduled to last the rest of the week, and while that does mess with my schedule, I’m interested in the inner workings of our courts. I’m sure I’ll say more if things go forward. Maybe they won’t and that’s fine too!
Thing I Saw Yesterday: The second episode of APTN’s show “First Contact”, which is wholly available for streaming online and is fascinating. However, there’s deepening conflict between the travelers on the show and as a peacemaker (Enneagram 9 lol) it’s stressful to watch them fight, so I try to decompress a little after the episode before going on with my day.
Thing I Learned Yesterday: Funding for First Nations people in Canada is a lot more complicated than the “they live off of white people’s taxes!!1” that I’ve heard for a long time. The show introduced some of the complexities and I’ve tried to do a little supplementary reading but it’s a massive topic. And here, again, I’m learning that there are so many situations where I’ve heard (or had) wildly oversimplified ideas about how things “should” be done. Interrogate and dig deeper on any idea that tries boil a huge problem down to one simple magic bullet solution! Reject ideas that start with the words “Well if they would just”! If solutions to our societal problems were easy, don’t you think we would have tried them?
I’m Grateful For: Family & community.