I had been planning on writing a front page rant about race and race mongering in the United States, and this is a topic I still intend to address in the coming weeks. But as I sat down to begin my rant, I realized that Christmas is this coming Wednesday. I spend much of my life contemplating, discussing, and writing about these grand sociopolitical issues that you hear about in this column all the time and it would be typical of me to publish another rollicking rant about some controversial issue today. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps now is not the time.
This year has been a trying year in a lot of ways. We’ve fought a war in Afghanistan, inched closer and closer to a new one in Iraq, our economy has tanked, there have been political upsets, and everybody seems to be operating at a higher speed and with more emotion than perhaps we did a mere year ago from this past September. This Christmas season I think it’s time for all of us—especially me—to take a deep breath and relax for a week.
I know in my life I’ve been running around, back and forth between my fifteen credit hours and twenty work hours every week, church events, working on my website, etc., etc., etc. I’ve hardly had any time to just set down and enjoy myself. So I’ve decided that instead of regaling you with my hard-thought opinions, instead of stressing about deadlines and homework, instead of telling you what I think about race in America today, I’ll just wish you all a Merry Christmas.
The world is worth discussing, all these sociopolitical issues are not to be ignored, but why don’t we all just take this week to be with loved ones and enjoy ourselves without troubling ourselves with these grand ideas and noble endeavors. Let’s just be people for a little while, outside of our political affiliations and outside of our animosities to celebrate a great religious and cultural holiday.
Next week I’ll have a whole ‘year in review’ retrospective for you with as many life lessons as I can fit in a rant, but right now why don’t you all just have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.