12/23/2003 10:01:00 AM by Rob

It's that time of the year, at last!

Whew! Looks like we made it to another joyous holiday season. I don't have it in my heart today to complain about not having Pudge Rodriguez on the Cubs' payroll, or to wonder why they are waiting until after the new year to talk to Greg Maddux, rather than do it now. I thought about explaining to one and all the difference between blaming and attibuting to Steve Bartman for the Cubs loss, for in my mind, there is a huge difference. But I'm not. I'm not even going to elaborate on my disappointment that a nuclear warhead didn't explode in Dallas last night, wiping out both Bobby effing Knight and Steve effing Alford in one fell swoop.

No, this is the last workday before Christmas, Christmas Eve Eve, as it were. I won't be checking in, in all likelihood, until the 29th, unless something major happens. So I want to take some of your time to speak to all of you from the heart.

Someone once said, if you weren't a liberal when you were young, you have no heart, and if you aren't a conservative as you get older, you have no brain. Funny. But I think the grain of truth behind this is that people have more energy to be more passionate in their youth. I can't imagine anyone being as passionate about their life as I was with mine. I let my heart lead me to places nobody should go to. I turned down a full-ride scholarship during the depths of a recession because I didn't like the college(s) it was for. I married, poorly, twice, because I had tricked myself into thinking that there was love when there wasn't. I have been overly selfish at times, and at other times overly generous, when I couldn't afford to be either. I have endured literally THOUSANDS of sleepless nights, worrying about whether I was worthy of friendship, or love.

But for as much passion as I have shown, I have never truly known my vocation. I am not "handy". I was the first male student in the history of the Coal City school district to ever score a 0 on the 7th grade mechanical aptitude test. I am not glib, I can't sell anything that I don't believe in, and there aren't many things that I do believe in. I have worked as a programmer and analyst for over 17 years, but I am being passed up by people 10 years younger than I, because I have so little interest in my profession, that I have never accomplished any more than what is expected.

I know I want to communicate. I have vocabulary, I have knowledge, and I have empathy, I think. But I don't have any style, skill; I'm not articulate. I am fat and non-photogenic, and my hair sucks. I certainly do not belong in front of a camera. My voice is monotone and dispassionate, from the bottom of a well. I lack the focus to be taken seriously in the written media. I use the word "I" way too much in my writing to ever make it as a true journalist, or as a serious commentator.

I am beginning to wonder, as I turn forty, what my true purpose is in life? My main contribution to the GDP is that of consumer. I am not a fighter, and I am not much of a lover, as well. There have been times in my life when I have been closer to God, enough to know that I miss it in times like the present, when I feel far, far away from the source of our lives together on Earth.

So perhaps that is the true purpose of the winter holidays. Maybe you are reading this from some place like California or Georgia, where stuff grows all year round. Here in Illinois, everything that is outside is either dead, or in hibernation. It is the low point of the year, and it is very easy to regress, to die inside.

Christmas and Hanukkah are not the most important holidays of the year. I believe Easter and Passover would qualify, when spring hopes eternal, according to The Liar, Ed Lynch. Certainly any solemnity or grace existent in these holidays has been scrubbed away from the commercialism. Even the good-intentioned effort to attend a religious service commemorating the holiday is made into an ordeal, having to arrive 90 minutes early for a 60 minute service, in order to find a seat.

But the thing I appreciate about the holiday season is that work slows down, for a few weeks. When I first started work, in the mid-eighties, the whole month of December was pretty much blowoff. These days, I notice a change around 12/15. For the next couple of weeks, competitive efforts to build, to fix, to gain advantage, are suspended, left for the start of the new year.

For two blessed weeks, I get time to think, to reflect on who I am, what I stand for, and what the rest of my life can be. I am able to once again ask what God expects of me. What is His plan? Am I passing His test? Am I here for myself? My wife? The kids? My parents, my friends? I try to drag myself to sit closer to God's light, to try to absorb Him, so I can better know how to live my life for Him.

It is much harder, though, as I get older. I don't feel as I did. In my twenties, my heart beat so hard, everything I did was hard. I talked loud, I walked noisily, when I would sign a receipt, the point of the pen would tear the paper. Now, I worry about how hard my heart beats. It makes me uncomfortable. Whether it was due to an effort on my part, or if I am just starting to slip, but I don't FEEL the passion I once did. I don't feel the source of life surging through me as I once did.

But if I didn't have this two weeks, the reminders of where God came to us, to try to come home and touch base with, I would spin forever out of orbit. I need this time now. I need to try to come home again to God. I need to feel passion and love again.

My gift to all of you is my wish for you to let go, and to try to reconnect with the source of your life, as well. I thank you and appreciate your fellowship, and I wish you peace this holiday season.

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