Why do people walk that lonesome walkway to see a mermaid?

Tivoli Garden has great musical performances in Copenhagan

~

The place to save a world is Starbucks.

Order a glass of prune juice on rocks.

Ay mermaid is a big stone black rock.

I confused? It was thee post-war-era.

I remember being there? I forget. huh.

oh, bebop-oh! I sang "Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley" in Tivoli 50 years and 5 months ago. Were you there??

The wonderful part about good writing is how it connects people far and wide. I could relate to so many things in here.

Though an agnostic brought up Hindu in Southern India, I heard Jesucristo before I heard Jesus Christ. Signs of the seafaring Portugese, perhaps?

I had to laugh out loud with your reference to the empty rice bowls. Being from India, that would not be apt. For me it is the sound of my father's voice saying "You would not like to be in a position where you have to borrow money for food. It is terrrrrrible" he said, rolling the r dramatically. I would shake if I had to spend more than 60% of my income, even in boom times. Seemed foolish then but not so foolish now. The ends meet and there is some left over to make a decent knot.

I am a big fan of PHC, have been since 1994. My late husband who had discovered it weeks before, played it on the radio of our clunker in a parking lot in Houston. Remember bits of the program.. the word 'slats' seem to play a big part in the story. Since then PHC was a staple in our house until we returned home to India some years ago.

Words can be of depth profound

But experience goes a deeper round

So wordless indeed does it sound

(A three line poem for you)

"...for unless they see the sky..but they can't and that is why..they know not if it's dark outside or light.."

Elton John.

Merry Christmas.

I was in Norway in the early seventies.

I sure loved the music in Tivoli Gardens.

Memory. Hop a train past the Arctic Circle.

Fiords, pine trees, rushing mountain creeks.

Spend the Summer Solstice in a town: `Bouda?

I forget how the town is spelled. The train ends.

It's a nice stop. Bouda. @ Midnight, a Sun hangs.

A Sun never sets in the summer. Feast. A Horizon.

Good Memory Experiences Replace Horror Images.

Good. Wonderful. I love a sensation:`Full of Wonder.

We/me wonder. Wander a Earth. Return Home. Begin.

Humans set off seeking. Everything is Realized Within.

What we/me sought to Find, it was always in eye sights.

As they say:` Eye spectacles dangle upon a nose. Oho.

The world becomes a Entertaining Grand Spectacle. Ay!

As they say? In front of. or, "Everything is at hand." Yes.

However, where's Jeanette A.? Remember a black bear?

Jeanette A.? We met in Spain. Summer. Ya lived in NYC?

I tried to look Ya up. Ay, across from NYC's Central Park.

The grouch guard at the door would not believe I knew You.

You out there? Your brother was at Harvard. I's milk Herefords.

The cow gives 13% more butter fat-per-Gal. Now, we/me goats.

"...maybe the essence of Christmas is dumb childlike wonder..."

From the God who smiles tolerantly when we replace The Presence with religion:

"True prayer is a longing of the heart."

Personal. Inviolable. Soul to Creator.

Peace...

GK's observations remind me of one that W.H. Auden made several decades ago...something to the effect that he enjoyed the Catholic mass best when delivered in a foreign tongue, as this allowed him to forget about the sense of the liturgy and focus totally on the ceremony's visual splendor and pomp.

The magic of the season has nothing to do with our decorations, obedience to a ceremony, the lights, sounds or smells....these are just reminders of the reason for the season.

The only translation needed is Christ was born to fulfill a mission that would ultimately bring all mankind (regardless of religious affiliation) back into the presence of our Heavenly Father by having the power to remove us from our sins through repentance. Without this power, we would die physically and spiritually.

We can go through the mentally exhausting acrobatic mankind thought process, or we can simply accept this great gift and change our lives to honor him.

Merry Christmas.

GK and PHC are available online

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/

You can still hear him in India courtesy of the www.

Cheers!

Childlike wonder IS Christmas!

At St. Patricks Cathedral in NYC, the Christmas after 9-11, I was attending high mass.

The Cardinal swept up the center aisle sprinkling holy water, and one magical droplet landed on my hymnal, onto the word JOY! And as it evaporated from the book and the mass continued, my childlike wonder and joy returned, just as simply as that!

I am too yak yak today. okay. I gotta go shopping for tools.

But it's so fun to go to a High Mass and follow the sprinkles.

Yes. Get under a holy spray and hold the mouth wide opens.

Sniff incense fragrance too. Begin to sway in mass adoration.

If I'm invited to midnight mass, I'll sing loud until I'm kicked.

It's okay. It's a HiJoy sorta kick. I'll say: Whoopee at worships.

Mass means worship. HiJoy. Have a good day with natural Joy.

I have a friend who's brighter than me, so it startled me when he shared his faith in God's plan for him.

I asked him, "So, when a child is buried alive by some sadistic serial killer, that's God's plan for that child? If you believe in the notion of God's plans, you also have to believe that God is a sadistic serial killer. And if there is no plan and God is all-powerful and all-seeing, God's the equivalent of those good Germans who lived beside Dachau and claimed innocence."

That's why, Mr. Keillor, it's best to engage faith in a foreign language, for faith crumbles under scrutiny. You are wise, Mr. Keillor, to modify "childlike wonder" with "dumb."