To my friends Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas too all my classy elegant and wise extended family of friends and all the people I have been so lucky to collect over the years.  It is such a joy to be reconnected however remotely to new and interesting people and hilarious childhood friends, to enjoy their lives through this venue.  Here's to you, those who had known my childhood.  The Gurrier clan who have shared so much humor and good cheer with me this year. Matteo Bignotti who has been so kind and terribly funny and thought provoking.  Everyone should have a first generation Italian somewhere in their collection.  Here's to the the Simon's.  And to the my dear Malone's, to the Hocking's, Waller's Warren's Murillo's Koci's Kalman's Webb's Pressman's Brewer's Agar's, Coss-Gravlin's and Banga's and so many others. A warm shout out to my beautiful talented  cousins Randy and Patty Snow and their families.  Here's to all the people who willingly enter my days and sometimes save my a**.  What reason do we have for living if not for people to joke with cheer up argue with and discuss change and the challenges ahead?  Christmas is an enormous opportunity to say how much you all mean to me even if by the can-string of Facebook.  It's still all very good.  The mystery of friendship is often the work of angels or positive probabilities that nudge us from hell to heaven like the fluttering of butterfly wings the slightest good will can change the course of lives.  That single thought, silent prayer or inner song we sing for each other is the most protective transformative and healing thing in nature.  By any other name it's love.  It folds space and time.  It transcends circumstance and forms our reality as we create our days.  It gives us knowledge and faith to see past birth death and into why humans are so important in the universe.  We live in a time when we are learning that the past was as amazing as the future.  We are getting lessons and are challenged like no other time in history.  And it is hard.  But like JFK said we don't choose these things because they are easy but because they are hard.  If I was to ask any of you for a Christmas present it would be to commit this year to politics and personal policies that look after our health, the environment and health of future generations some of whom are joining us right now.  Thanks for reading my diatribes and listening to the message that is my life.  The world is made of language and we can do so much if we just use our voice.  Today sing praise to Christ, and tomorrow we do exactly the same thing in every thought we have.

The most recent painting for my collection. The last one of 2015