Hi all. I thought I'd have commented more, but family and other stuff happened...but I'll get to all of you before season's end---I promise! And I'm very grateful for your wonderful comments and visits. But since Christmas is almost here, here's a little tale---all true---which I hope captures the spirit of the season. My wishes are at the end...hope you enjoy, dear people... * * * When I was 11, we'd often pass an old convent: the Sisters of Someone-or-Other. I don't remember the name... We passed it on the way to playing football. And we always grew awed when we approached, because it was so silent, so mysterious and so private. We never saw a soul. Occasionally we heard chant wafting through the windows---like silk strands, or like those sugar strands you saw in cotton candy? before it was rolled into those big white billows? those white strands wavering in the air---that's what the chants were like, and in silken female voices...One of us said: "They have angels in there..." We 'd get transfixed, then move on. (Mauling each other with a football was way too important to waste anymore time listening to religious songs...) One day, after a brutal game of touch-football (in which several of us threatened to eradicate the others "from the face of the earth"---there were injuries and real blood), we stumbled home, and passed the Sisters' place, wanting to shout, "yeah???"---because we were convinced they'd think we were brutes for beating each other up, and we were in no mood for a lecture from nuns: we were ready for a holy fight. Their chant was particularly ethereal that day, and we---rowdy and growling---refused to stop and listen, even as the music drew us in secretly. It was hard not to listen. Well, I was the musician in the bunch (I'd studied classical music since 4), so I didn't want to leave. I'd heard of chants, and these were real Gregorian Chants, in Latin (!!), sounding like they wafted in from another age. So, after putting up some tough facade (like I needed to 'bind my wounds, you men go home') (yeah I called them 'men': we were full of ourselves in those day), I convinced them to leave...I wanted to listen... Suddenly, a Sister came out to dump some waste in the garden, eyed me like I were from another planet, then said: "Young man: Are you lost?" Ok, I was bleeding and rag-torn: I looked lost. But, god, I couldn't take my eyes off her. First, she was a human, which I didn't think existed in that place. Second, being a nun, she wore this strange black gown with a strange head covering, with bird-wing corners for a hat: I almost thought she was a penguin. And her face was so smooth---her arms too, and her hands, like silk---I thought this was the first time she'd actually seen the sun. 'She'll melt!' I thought. I couldn't stop staring. (I was rude.) "You're bleeding," she said, unfazed by my behavior. "Come in. We'll get you cleaned." I froze. Then, with a smile, she said: "You're a Jewish child, aren't you?" (How did she know? Was it because I hadn't seen a nun before?) "It's in your face," she said, with great tenderness: "A little rabbi. Come in, we'll get you cleaned." What should I do? She was so different. These people were so different. Was I allowed here? Would I ever come out? She signaled with her wrist: "Come, I won't bite..." It was magic. It was dark, the candles made it glow a deep orange-red, like walking through a Rembrandt painting. Chant filled the walls...and everywhere? the smell of jasmine and rose---I knew the scents because my mother wore them all the time. Where did this place come from? Was it dropped out of the clouds? I was agape. She took me past endless rooms: Every room was dark and intensely cloistered---I expected skeletons to hobble out, covered in cobwebs. Each room had a nun, some on their knees, praying fiercely, some sitting on a hard chair bobbing back and forth reading from old leather-bound books, with hardly a word or sound except for the quiet whooshing of their gowns flexing in deep prayer. It was a silent symphony of devotion, very moving, and it scared the daylights out of me. We got to the kitchen: She grabbed a cloth, dipped it in some liquid, and washed my arm. (It stung.) Then she said: "Now you're clean!" I didn't want to leave. She walked me to the chapel where several nuns were chanting in utter privacy: Time stood still here. Impossible to believe there was a city outside... "We must pray now," she said: "Do you want something for your journey?" (My 'journey'??? I couldn't get over that word. It sounded so biblical, like I'd walk outside to endless desert, with rippling winds and daunting desolation, and a camel waiting by a tree...she'd give me flatbread wrapped in wool, say "god be with you, good samaritan," and set me off for Damascus or the Galilee, or the Cedars of Lebanon...I wasn't even sure the 'Cedars of Lebanon' was a destination, but it sure felt like it was, in there...) She gave me a muffin. Then let me out. Whoosh! The sun was so bright, I covered my eyes. Their chant now mixed with increasing traffic---rush hour approached---and I felt like I'd stepped out of another age. I couldn't walk for a while. I was disappointed that there were no prophets wafting in the distance, no people offering alms or carrying fresh baked loaves under their arms... I told my friends, the next day: "I went inside!" They made fun of it. I joined in. (Yeah, I was 11, I gave into the temptation: peer pressure and all that. Later, I thought, "I'm a total jerk".) But we laughed, made dumb jokes, and imitated 'pious people'. But I never forgot the intoxication of that place, or the sense that something exquisitely private and sacred took place there. In the middle of a loud, modern city. It left something very deep in me, and very, very special. The muffin was exquisite, btw; and I'd like to say, "I've searched the world, ever since, for a muffin like that...but I've never found one...(alas)..." But no: I never searched...and I've found tons of great muffins since. But it oozed with warm butter, blueberries and honey, with a touch of cinnamon and ginger; and it was heaven. You know the expression---I've used it a thousand times here: "It's not the wise who are in heaven, but heaven that is in the wise"...well: Heaven was in that muffin. Truly. If you want to find heaven, look no further:. That should close the book on all theological discussion. I found heaven that day. Unfortunately I ate it, and I haven't worked out the rest. But heaven is in the small things. Little gifts...that much I can say. To all of you, of all faiths and no faiths, believers and rationalists, and just I-don't-have-the-answers people (of which I am partly a member) and grateful for every joy, a wonderful Christmas, a blessed and loving end of the year, a wonderful "season of lights," and a wonderful 2019. I couldn't let Christmas pass without sending my wishes to all you dear people. With peace and love to all, and immense gratitude for the gifts you give here everyday, a sweetest of holidays to all, m ------------------