The Unclad Soul

I was out recently in the Christmas crowd shopping for my grandchildren. They don’t really need a thing. They have so much. They fortunately live within the amazing care of a dad and mom who adore and cherish and abundantly provide for them. I wanted to just package up some hugs and kisses and send those as my gifts. Wouldn’t that be enough? It would, for them. They would be perfectly fine with such gifts. But I followed the rest of the holiday legion to Target and elsewhere to lend my effort to our society’s commercial Christmas mania. There is that line in Dr. Seuss’ famous “The Grinch That Stole Christmas” that nudges me this time of year: “ Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”   Well, there’s an old fashioned idea for you. A sadly archaic thought buried beneath the nearest mall’s concrete foundation conveniently silenced far beyond the

“The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel.  Only the young have an explanation for everything.”   ―   Isabel Allende,   City of the Beasts