As many of us enjoy our Christmas season amidst our varying degrees of affluence, we must not overlook those among us who, in what for most is one of the happiest times of the year, are suffering.  In countless ways.  In particular, I am thinking about the people of Ukraine, pummeled daily by the missiles of a person deluded by a dream of lost empire.  Bereft of heat and electricity, thousands of Ukrainians are suffering horribly.

    I think also of the millions in Africa who are likewise affected by the maniacal actions of this person in Moscow.  Due to this person's perfidy, these millions cannot get sufficient grain to make bread.  A vast famine is imminent.

    Moreover, how many more millions, those who live close to the borders of Russia, who labor daily under the threat of invasion, their lives and livelihood hanging by a too slender thread, remain?  Too many.

    Closer to home, I think about one of our neighbors whose mother passed away shortly after Christmas last year, enduring his own sense of grief.  Christmas will be very different for him and his family this year.

    And then I wonder, given the innately divine goodness and purposefulness of the world, how to put it all together.  More than ever we are to be reminded  f how much we, walking as "in a riddle," need to believe in it.

    And, in the biggest picture, very little more.