Living With Trauma: The Healers, 44

It is Christmas morning, and I have been already up since the obscenely early hour of 4:45, or so. I did have the CBC Radio One on till just now. They were playing lovely classical music, much of it Christmas themed, but now it's just past 6, it is regular Christmas programming and they're playing garbage, all jazzy and pop Christmas mall style schlock. Of course, they tend to still have at the CBC a huge irrational hate-on for classical music, since removing it from most of their programming, and when they play it, they want to make sure it will be during a time that no one will be around to listen, like in the very early hours of Christmas morning. Merry Kitschmas from the CBC. So, it's quiet again in my apartment, which seems appropriate for this very sacred morning, though for many there is really little or no religious significance, but there are a lot of spiritual but not religious folk around these days for whom there remains a germ and patina of the Holy about Christmas Day. Atheists get nothing, but that's what they believe in, so that's what they get. Nothing wrong with atheists, mind you. I simply avoid getting into arguments with them for one simple reason: it is a complete waste of time and energy. The choice to believe or to not believe is something very individual and very, shall I say, private and personal. I think that we can only really believe in God when we feel certain that he has revealed himself to us. If we don't have that certainty, or even come to believe that such a certainty is an absurdity that cannot exist, then who am I to tell or persuade otherwise? It would be disrespectful, just as disrespectful as someone telling me that I believe in a sky fairy that I read about in the Bible. But, to quote the Sufi poet, Rumi, let's leave those asses to graze in their pasture. I've done an extraordinary amount of baking this Christmas: triple batch of shortbread: half pound butter, one cup brown sugar, teaspoon vanilla, teaspoon lemon juice, half teaspoon of salt and two cups whole wheat flour. Blend softened butter with brown sugar, and afterward lick the residue from the spoon or blending apparatus, but don't lick anything else, we want to keep things hygienic. Add vanilla, salt and lemon juice. Stir with (clean!) spoon, while gradually adding in the flour. Then, further mix and knead it with your scrupulously washed hands until it's all a uniform mass. Roll into little balls and place on cookie sheets, then flatten them with a fork and bake for ten minutes at 350 F. Made with whole wheat and brown sugar gives the cookies an earthy and butterscotch deliciousness! And they're a little more nutritious this way, too! Last night I did a huge batch of forty chocolate chip cookies. Blend with a spoon or masher one quarter pound softened butter with one and a half cups of brown sugar. Add three beaten eggs (or just beat them with the mixture), add one teaspoon of vanilla extract and two tablespoons lemon juice, one tablespoon milk and mix. Gradually add in two and one quarter cups whole wheat flour with a half teaspoon of salt and mix. Then add as many semi-sweet chocolate chips as you can get away with. Drop from a tea spoon onto ungreased baking pans and bake twelve to fifteen minutes, or when they appear done in preheated oven at 375 F. Last night I also prepared the mass for the bread pudding we are having for breakfast this morning. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it and a lot of the baking is going to be shared with others or given away as gifts. For me this also helps me appreciate the hard work my mother and a lot of mothers for that matter, put in to make it an enjoyable Christmas for family and friends. Men generally don't have a clue and I don't think it would kill some of us to find out first hand what it's like and how hard the women in our lives bust their asses for our families. As for me, I've always been on my own, but really, in order to get any value out of this season then one really has to start being an adult and actually get to work at doing things for others. There is something very selfish and entitled about the way we raise our children to think of Christmas with Santa Claus and presents and toys and goodies and stuff. I think that children are really damaged and harmed this way. I think that had I had different parents, generous, kind and community minded people, preferably Christians, then I might have escaped from this kind of toxic spoiling. Had my parents at an early age taught my deplorably selfish brother and me the value of volunteer work, of giving to others, of giving back, of helping the less fortunate in our community, and to share our bounty and our Christmas dinner with people who were really unfortunate and vulnerable, had we included them into our lives as friends, then I think that Christmas and life itself would have taken on a vastly different and far lovelier meaning in our lives and we would have been beautifully transformed by this. Unfortunately, my brother turned into the sort of person I would rather not write about on this blog, and I was able to change thanks to the divine interventions in my life that began early in my adolescence. Unfortunately the selfish and entitled damage from my childhood Christmases has lingered on like an odour of cat pee on a raincoat, and only now, in my sixties, am I finally shaking loose from this vile selfishness of consumer-mas. It is just past seven, Gentle Reader, and I intend to take a good two hour walk before putting the bread pudding in the oven. A happy Christmas Day to all of you!