‘Tis the season to be thankful for the gifts we are given. Among those – I’m thankful for my fellow Mad Geniuses, who put up with me (and even egg me on. The egging around here isn’t just eggnog, it’s also bad puns and riffing on jokes until it takes a right turn through historical trivia and into a story idea…)
But we wouldn’t be the blog we are without you, the readers. Thank you for coming back, and for commenting, the occasional guest post, for the questions, and even the terrible puns.
While I appreciate that for those of us on the other side of the equator it’s now high summer (and Western Australia’s fire council has posted the extreme burn ban naughty and nice lists), in the northern hemisphere, this is the time to contemplate that in the utter depths of darkness, killing cold and bleak despair, that is when the hope and light that shall bring life to the world is born.
The greatest victories have a beginning, small and uncertain, under harsh conditions, requiring a lot of faith and hope and work to pull off. The decision to make anew and light the Temple’s menorah, despite only having one cruse of olive oil that had escaped the conquerors, and that sufficient only for one day, with resupply over a week out. The decision to not publicly punish your pregnant-not-by-you betrothed, but to put her quietly aside… and then the decision to carry out the angel’s instructions.
May we all learn to imbue ourselves, and our fiction with the stubborn resistance of insisting that spring will come: the evergreen bough in the hut in defiance of all of winter’s bleakness, the candle against the blizzard outside. The celebration and giving gifts for the future even as the sun dies. With nurturing the small spark of hope, that it may grow to transform the world.
Mad Genius Club 
Amen.
And Amen.
In principio erat Verbum . . . And the Most High said . . . It starts with words. Words of hope, words of love, words of encouragement, words of determination.
Fröliche Weinachten!
Merry Christmas! Peace on earth, good will toward men!
I pray the G-d of the Maccabees, and of The Christ bless you and your house even more richly.
Amen, and Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas everybody!
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Merry Christmas everyone!
“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”
Puddleglum, The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis