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Namaste and welcome.

I'd like to start off by recounting a story told by a great American historian, journalist,

author James Aggie. He recounts an experience during the Great Depression that struck me.

He found the impoverished elderly woman in the hullos of Appalachia.

And she was living in this tiny shack with dirt floors and no heat and no plumbing.

So he asked her, well, what would you do if someone came along and gave you some money to help you out?

And she was rocking in her chair and shook her head and she said, well, I guess I'd give it to the poor.

And what struck me so much about this is it really has within it one of the greatest of the spiritual teachings,

the teachings of awakening, which is for true happiness, our life is not about the what's happening,

but how we're relating to it. So we can be in any state, but whether or not we're happy,

whether or not we're feeling our hearts are open, it's going to depend on how we're relating to what's happening.

And I was reflecting a lot on us here entering where we've already entered it,

the holiday season, the season of the holy days, and the meaning of the holy days and how through history,

they were times of pausing so that we humans could reconnect with something that was sacred, that we cherished,

and live in a more awake way with each other, relating through creativity and song and dance,

and relating through prayer and so on, to really be living in a way that reflected the divine,

at that holy quality. And so I think about that here we are, and that's the invitation.

Can we reclaim that somewhat if it hasn't been so alive for us or for others around us,

to have this be a time of really living from love and living from gratitude and huge amount of acceptance,

you know how, and a totally French put it, he said, it's difficult to be a saint in the midst of your family.

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