OBAMA, CAN THIS REALLY BE THE END?

"... We are at the end of the beginning, the hard work starts now ..."
(from President Obama's speech on October 20, 2009)





"An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice

Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again"

(Bob Dylan)

*

"What science finds to be nonexistent, we must accept as nonexistent, but what science merely does not find is a completely different matter.

... It is quite clear that there are many, many, mysterious things."

(Dalai Lama)

*

"Om, Mama, can this really be the end?"
(Margaret Hibbing aka Oboe)

ROLLING HOME (TO CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART)

Listen.

Addendum:

R.L. asked about what appears to be a marker at the side of the gravel path leading to Bellingham's Bayview Cemetery. It's not a marker, but a small boulder placed there by a landscape designer. It's a place where people stop and rest. Her question did bring to my mind Bob Dylan's words,"here lies bob dylan," from his book Tarantula, written in 1966. I didn't have to look very far on Google to find the rest of the quote:

“here lies bob dylan
demolished by Vienna politeness-
which will now claim to have invented him
the cool people can
now write Fugues about him
& Cupid can now kick over his kerosene lamp-
bob dylan-filled by a discarded Oedipus
who turned
around
to investigate a ghost
& discovered that
the ghost too
was more than one person.”

Which got me to searching for Scrooge and the three ghosts he encountered, including the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Here are some of Scrooge's words to that ghost:

"I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!...I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

Which reminded me of the only Christmas card I ever received from Richard (that must have been around 1990) which, as I remember, read:

"Slowly, slowly, Christmas arrives in the heart."

(it was "Softly…Gently…Joyfully…Christmas arrives in the heart." )

Thanks, R.L., for your question.

I love what I've heard of "Christmas in the Heart"!