I only have a couple minutes, here:):):)...

...I've got a job opportunity working on a local marketing campaign for my favorite bookstore in the whole wide world:):):)...the Vagabond Bookman in Lawrence, Kansas:):):)...

Howard, who owns the store, is one of the greatest guys I've ever known and loves books and people -- at least openly -- more than anyone bookstore owner I've ever met:):):)...half the fun of going to the Bookman is to just talk with Howard about books and about life and to just enjoy loving both:):):)...Howard really is his own best asset:):):)...but my friend Devang and I have proposed that we might help him make the place a little bit more appealing to a broader group of people (and to his regular customers:):):)...

But, in the meantime, I just wanted to write for a moment about how blessed my life feels, despite all of the very hard times in the last year:):):)...how authentically, and I suppose appropriately, thankful I feel about my life as Thanksgiving comes up this year:):):)...

I've always said that my best holiday memories were during times of scarcity:):):)...

The year that we couldn't afford a Christmas tree and made a Christmas crib instead with a little doll baby Jesus borrowed from one of my sisters' collections:):):)...

...or the year when my father couldn't afford gifts for us kids and got us all little things like pencils and mini board games:):):)...

This year is not a year of scarcity like that:):):)...but it's definitely not my richest holiday season, in terms of money:):):)...

...which is ok because all my best gifts have always been white elephant or homemade, I think:):):):)...and all the best gifts I've received:):):):):) (other than money, which is a fine Christmas gift for those who like money's flexibility:):):)...

I realize this year that what I want more than anything is a few of my ideals to be achieved...some authentic progress on this situation with the university, where I am taken seriously as the prime mover in my own academic career, and where my professors' input is given serious attention, but where it is, ultimately, feedback rather than ultimatums...

I want more opportunity to help open up my community...to help make it more authentically stronger because people here learn to open our hearts in the face of difficulties rather than react with mean-spiritedness and force to every problem even when mean-spiritedness NEVER helps, and when force is only a temporary solution to problems that need more openness and freedom and discussion and support for individual consciences to sort out difficult questions and situations...

I want a real chance to share ideas where a lot more people have the opportunity to read them and engage them in their more thorough form, with patience and a sense of peace around the reality that people will still choose less than ideal ways to deal with problems -- individual and community problems -- that have consequences for all of us:):):)...

But a patience and a peace which is the more ideal route for our hearts to go:):):)...

And I want to experience and share more love in my life after a year when I have both shared and experienced more love than probably ever in my life:):):)...

I would like to see some of the seed of hope and love and ideas that I've planted this year to take some root:):):)...and I'd like to see how it grows:):):)...

OK...I've got to get out of here and go meet Howard's wife to see about this marketing opportunity:):):)...

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying life:):):)...

I'll talk with everyone soon:):):)...

Love,
Ben