And let's not forget this holiday tradition.....

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Sunday December 28, 2008 · 7:47 AM PST

2008/12/28 · 07:47

Depression.

After all the weeks of pre-Christmas hype and hoopla which I think now begins some time in August, we have entered the period twixt Christmas and New Year's Day when many of us find ourselves in a deeply contemplative mood. This period is marked by the physical and emotional dyspepsia from the Yuletide excesses and the self-denial of the costs both physical and monetary which will come due in the New Year.

But the perennial pall that normally descends has been heightened and deepened this year by the economic disaster which has just begun to gain momentum and sweep across the country and the world without regard to income level or status. Many of us are terrified by the daily reportage on-line, on TV, and in print of the financial catastrophes that have already befallen our fellow citizens and consequently lie awake at night in fear and trepidation.

We have been programmed to believe that the start of each New Year is an opportunity for a new beginning and renewal. That's why some of us still make New Year's resolutions which are more quickly ignored and forgotten than ex-Senator Larry Craig at a Republican caucus.

This coming New Year would seem to be the least auspicious time for resoluteness and resolve. We see in retrospect that the world has not changed much in the last 366 days...at least not for the better. Wars, famine, natural catastrophes, collapsing financial institutions, violence, prejudice, hate crimes, all continue to flourish across the globe.

Yet this coming January 1 might just be the morning after when we collectively awaken from our "live for the day" philosophy and free spending lifestyles to the sobering reality of the world as it is now and is going to be for a long time to come.

The good news is that, as we used to say in the seminary, "You can't fall off the floor". We may not have quite hit bottom but its close enough for us to see. And there is that perennial light at the end of the tunnel.

Nineteen days after the start of the New Year, we will say goodbye and good riddance to the worst president in the history of the republic and, as will be slowly revealed over the coming months and years, the most corrupt administration also.

His replacement is not from a place called Hope, but a man who brings us hope.

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