I noticed that my last entry was on the 20th this instance, so I skipped a whole week; that’s what holidays do to me:-). And, not to be overlooked were the many activities that dominated my agenda, besides the general preparations of the season; could that be phrased as ‘seasoned preparations’?

On Tuesday eve I joined Elisabeth and her son for supper at his place, watched the new superman movie - which has a saviour theme - followed by our attending of the Knox United midnight service. On Christmas day I joined the Cook family to celebrate the day. This consisted of a late afternoon supper, followed by ‘the game’ and then coffee desert and conversation, always a welcoming and warm event and the tenth (10th) one for me this year.

My fancy shopping bag, presented as a bag within a bag, did the rounds, meaning that it was a desirable item, which is a status not easily achieved with this discerning company! Sam ended up with it, but may be sharing it with her Mom. I ended up with an oversized belt and a massage tool.

On Boxing day I was back again in the south, this time with John, Tammy and Annie for our family gift exchange. Annie’s present was a nicely painted ceramic reindeer, which I have christened ‘Ralph’. Thanks Annie, it is nice of you to make such a personal present. I also received a nice sweater among several other welcome presents.

On Friday morning I took the train to Kensington’s Art Supply store, but they had postponed their final sale to mid January possibly. Yet, I had decided to continue with my ‘artwork’, now that I had completed my Mandala73 project and needed a suitable sketch book before Sunday. I chose the ‘Bristol’ type that is smooth and will accept soft felt marker colours.

Yesterday afternoon I met up with former book club friends, which has become a yearend event with Howard and Rea, and whoever else from here who can come. Thomas and Gabriella also came like last year and as Jack did not. Ada also missed this time, but I got a card for her, which still needs to be delivered.

After our friend-full reconnect, I drove Howard and Rea to their accommodation near the airport. My coffee conversation with Howard let to an observation on Dao-ism and my car conversation with Rea to one on morality and economics in our western society. I have given these some further thought and decided to write below on these two topics.
That was 8:30am, then Elisabeth called and now it is 9:07am.

Howard and I share an ongoing interest in religion and explore different aspects of this phenomenon. So, when asked, he told me about a new interest in Dao-ism, but that he was still keeping in touch with his earlier interest of New Thought and the ‘Advaita Vedanta’ branch of Hinduism. Howard observed that these various beliefs have ideas in common, though they maybe named differently.

it is just the same by a different name

This idea of things being the same is also held by some other friends of mine and I did so myself for some time. However, I have some reservations about this generalising idea of ‘it is just the same by a different name’ observation. My reason is that people and groups hold beliefs with an intensity that belies this apparent sameness.

It is my observation that with the held belief, there also is a held notion of identity, relating to the individual and community. This sense of identity has social, ethnic and cultural associations and roots that are strongly valued. They form the basis of differences that are not easily reconciled even though the purely intellectual concepts can be similar in content and meaning.

Rea and I explored ‘economic good’ versus ‘morally good’ and our conversation stopped at my strongly voiced opinion that ‘equating economic good with good is immoral’. This put a stop to this discussion and we switched topics, partly on account of the fact that I was driving.

Time is ticking, but I just want to note here and now, that it is incumbent on us in our realm of humanity to explore these aspect to the full of our capacity of discernment, as this is our contribution as humans within the totality of ‘Existence Divine’. <9:29am for now and time to meet Elisabeth.~