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Maile and I sit at the tiny kitchen table in my parents’ basement. Christmas music plays quietly. Cade and Lucy are asleep in the other half of the basement, Abra and Sam sleep back in the bedroom, and the laundry turns in its erratic rhythm. We are counting down the days until we can move.

But there is peace here, in the midst of a slowdown in work, and living in tight spaces. And a stupid speeding ticket. There is peace in the midst of more doctor’s appointments and more words I want to write and an overwhelming desire to contribute.

I’m not always sure where this peace comes from, but I have a feeling it originates mostly from hope. When I’m hopeless, I’m peace-less. Hopeful, peaceful.

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As we sat at the table, Maile pointed out an article at Yahoo.com about the parents of Columbine shooter, Dylan Klebold:

When asked what they would say to Dylan if they could speak to him now, Tom says, “I’d ask him what the hell he was thinking and what the hell he thought he was doing!”

Sue’s answer is a revelation. She says, “I would ask him to forgive me, for being his mother and never knowing what was going on inside his head, for not being able to help him, for not being the person he could confide in.”

I think one of the quickest ways we lose hope is when we stop confiding in people. When we start providing all of the answers to our own questions.

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I received an email from someone I met on the interwebs. She told me she was walking through the valley. She told me that sometimes she came pretty close to losing all of her hope. She told me that reading one of my old posts (“You Will Want to Give Up. Don’t.”) is one of the few strands that she can hang on to.

And I’ll tell you this – her simple act of confiding helped to pull me up out of my own downward cycle. This, I think, is what happens when we confide in one another: outside voices, even desperate ones, carry their own small vein of hope. Because when someone confides in you, or you in them, something besides the words is communicated.

There’s a chance I’ll get past this.

There’s a tiny possibility that we’ll talk again, in better times.

Even though I sometimes want to give up, I hope.

Don’t keep all of that sadness or depression or madness to yourself. Find someone to confide in. You might find an unexpected hope.

Not even politics divides our country as violently as the “when-to-start-listening-to-Christmas-music” debate. You have the traditionalists who, if they hear a Christmas song being played before Christmas Eve, go into cardiac arrest. At the other extreme are the churches who sing “Joy to the World” in their regular worship rotation.

Today, I’m settling it once and for all. Here are five reasons you should have started listening to Christmas music on November 1st:

1 – Waiting until after Thanksgiving to start listening to Christmas music is like waiting until you’ve already started peeing to unzip your pants. By then, it’s just too late, and you might as well skip it.

2 – When I was a kid, and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer came on the radio, my dad would always kind of laugh, and then my mom would give him that look that asked, “Are you going to let our children listen to this violent ridiculousness?” And then he’d come to his senses and change the station. I would like to be reminded of this memory more than one month out of the year.

3 – It’s Christmas, Charlie Brown is a year round album. Seriously. I’ll fight you about that.

4 – The economy is suffering, folks! And it’s a proven fact that people spend more money when there is Christmas music playing in the background. Playing Christmas music in November = job recovery and national debt relief. Playing Christmas music for the owner of Papa John’s = good economic sense.

5 – I find that reminding my kids that Christmas is just around the corner (and beginning this process on November 1st) is a helpful aid in two-months’ worth of behavior modification, instead of just one (ie all that nonsense about coal).

When do you start listening to Christmas music? What’s your favorite Christmas song (and by which artist)?

“The most important thing you can do is…do a lot of work.” An insightful interview with NPR’s Ira Glass:

Some excerpts from my favorite blog posts from the last week(ish):

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The crowd has become unwieldy, people stumble about, knocking into furniture and each other. Sometimes, they assist one another, smiling with understanding. Sometimes, they grumble and create distance. Some leave.

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My nose is fine, thanks, better every day, but the reminder was a worthwhile one.

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Tomorrow marks seven years of blogging. In seven years, I’ve learned a couple of things about this process.

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Every other Saturday morning, I see them lined up at the top of the hill when I drive by on my way to get coffee or hit the dollar store.  People waiting to get food from what I can only assume is the local food pantry.  They are in the parking lot of the Catholic Church, and sometimes I see them leaving with big, brown paper bags.  I have never stopped.

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We talked about what cool means, and how growing up is hard. And how there is always a new growing up to do. She worried she was running out of time. She said, “I only have five more years.”

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So let’s dig in. Let’s open our eyes and engage critically. Let’s wrestle together with what it looks like to be not conformed to the world but transformed.

It’s so easy to rant and rave about politics, to make fun of the other side, to make bold claims about the improved world your candidate will usher in.

But when you drive past that forlorn young woman walking in the opposite direction on the road’s shoulder, and your kids are screaming in the back seat, and you’re already running late, will you turn your car around and give her a ride?

It’s so easy to look up socio-political facts on Google, to find books about Stigler or Keynes, to put together an argument on the benefits of national health care or the drawbacks of increasing taxes on the wealthy.

But when that guy at church who loves to talk (and you know he lives alone) sees you through the crowd, do you pretend not to see him, or do you cut through your hurry and find him, offer him your time?

It’s so easy to mail in a check to your local community center or to put $20 in the plate at church during Christmas.

But when you ask that person you gave a ride to how you can help, and they look at you through blurry eyes and don’t say “diapers” or “food” or “money for utilities,” but instead say, “I could really just use a friend – would you hang out with me sometime?” then what will you do?

We are so comfortable remaining among the easy arguments, learning things that make us sound intelligent, doing things that require so little. But there’s another level, a deeper level that we are called to. Another plane of engagement.

What will you do?