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Show THE ZEPHYRDECEMBER 1995 PAGE 8 Pack Creek Ranch Subject A Country Inn & Guest Ranch to Change Cherie Gilmore By even Christinas.. You may call it Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice or a celebration. Whatever you choose, it is upon us. And whatever you choose, it's African American holiday, the twelve Jewish festival, the seven-da- y The eight-da- y to the return of the sun. They're not so far days of Christinas or the simple salute we celebrants choose to impose, they all apart, really. Aside from the distance whether in the traditions of one s embody certain aspects of sameness. Faith will continue to return to give us personal beliefs or a simple faith that the sun need for something life; a heightened awareness of our connectedness to and of outside ourselves; mostly a looking forward, a rebirth hope. When I celebrate Christmas, it is with and because of that hope. I admit that I would feel deeply out of place at a Kwanzaa festival or lighting of the Menorah. I have no background in either culture and have no need to impose myself on either tradition. While I celebrate the return of the sun with great joy and traditions of feelings of festivity, I am still most comfortable with the Christmas malls. I like the my childhood. I like the lights, the music, even the crowded idea of a little baby whose birth was attended by the animals and whose entire later philosophy seemed to be grounded in gentleness. Whatever his followers distorted that philosophy into, for one night he was just a baby. And he brought CALL NOW AND RESERVE THE LODGE FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS PARTY. hope. i i i (801)259-550- 5 P.O. Box 1270 Moab, UT 84532 It is that sense of hope that is the common thread in all our traditions, our shared lifeline. The gifts we give at Christmas are, in their best and purest sense an attempt to remember that gift of hope. But the gifts we give all the rest of the year are an affirmation that the hope is not misguided. Tonight, it is those gifts 1 think about. I think about a man named Yitzhak Rabin, who devoted his life to a hope for peace. 1 think of the efforts he put forth for years and the changes he brought about in his angry country. 1 think of this man who gave his life for a dream of peace, and it is hard to mourn. We can mourn the man who killed him, because he never had that vision, not even a glimpse of that hope. But Yitzhak Rabin leaves behind the gift of his vision, a light for his country to move toward. But for every Nobel Prize winner who dies in a great and highly visible cause, there are others who, in a quiet, day to day fashion, give gifts that go too long unacknowledged. 1 think about them. 1 When I was a freshman in college - long ago but not so very far away accidentally registered for a course called, "Literature on the American -- - j i RETURNS TO MOAB! i THURSDAY, DECEMBER 77H STAR HALL 7:30 PM Presented by Kokopelli Productions ft Tickets available at: BACK OF BEYOND BOOKS MUSIC of MOAB KZMU |