Seasons Come; Seasons Go

I like to fancy myself and my family at this season of the year living in a large castle. Even an English manor estate with enough suits for each family to have their own space. In my imagination I would spend this season in feasting and festivals.

It would start just before Thanksgiving and extend until the middle of January. Every evening there would be a large meal with games and entertainment afterwards.

I would also hire several cooks and a good clean up crew. But it would be a good time for all, cooks and clean up crew included, not just a few.

In castles and English manors, it is interesting to note, men were the cooks/chefs and kitchen help. The working world of women and men in the long ago, in general, did not overlap.

This is my favorite season. I like the decorations, the time spent together with family and friends talking or eating, or eating and talking.

In our neck-of-the-woods it might be too cold to live in a castle this time of the year. Or maybe we'd all have to become a wee bit closer to one another.

In our current world we live better lives than kings and queens of old. As one author described it, 'we all suffered from the proximity of the privy'.

We had acquaintances who did mission work in Australia thirty or forty years ago. One of the local men was quoted in a discussion of having the toilet in the house, 'Who'd want the stinking thing in the house?'

The current Australian feelings on this subject have quite likely changed by now, but, proximity of the privy at one time struck all civilizations. At times the potty isn't close enough, and at others it can't be far enough away.

I do miss somethings from by gone eras and don't believe our new circumstances are better, but as in a by gone post of mine, it is a trade off.

We have convenience, but... As the world becomes closer in many aspects (we can know what's happening on either coast within minutes) it is farther away.

We no longer know our neighbors. Often we lose sight of our family and friends let alone our neighbors.

We have communication devices and are connected 24/7 with people we call 'friends' who are in reality mostly just acquaintances. Because we have so much communication, it has become cheap and shallow.

As in another previous post, life has become pinched and small. We all have the solution, but very few are inclined to take it.

FOMO—Fear Of Missing Out—is the problem. Communication does help us know when to prepare for emergencies, but how often do we need them?

Balance and trade off. In our nosy, everyone in everyone else's business world, it has become difficult to balance.

I have an old phone that texting on is a challenge. Even if it weren't, I still wouldn't be enamored with texting. Some parents have told me their children wouldn't communicate with them if they didn't text.

Well, most of mine don't either, but that's fine. It's their prerogative. I don't know what most of them have for dinner, or when they have a spat with their spouse, or ad infinitum, and I'm good with that.

And this time of year, in the absence of a castle, I suppose I'll be forced to find a good book (maybe about a castle) and curl up with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate and take a trip back in time via an old fashioned communication device.

Ecclesiastes 5:7 "For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God. 9) Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field. 10) He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. 11) When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?"