It was my plan to wake up this morning, Christmas 2007, and post about how on this one day, no one was killed or maimed.  But that wasn’t to be as the New York Times reports moments ago of an explosion in Iraq, a suicide bomber killing 22 in Baghdad.  Pope Benedict XVI gave a beautiful  homily that God “came to restore beauty and dignity to creation, to the universe.”

Soup kitchens in Manhattan served more than  1000 meals to homeless New Yorkers, but they will still be homeless after they eat.  President Bush called  10 service members in Iraq to thank them for their sacrifice, but they will still be in Iraq after the call.  The defense department’s  norad system can be used to track Santa’s progress.  If you celebrate Christmas, I hope he made his way to your house and brought things that will bring joy to your children.   Wall Street bonuses are bigger than ever, but the financial markets are unkind to everyone else.  Maybe your child’s prayer for a Wii will go unfulfilled if your bonus didn’t come in yet.

For anyone familiar with Simple Justice, you know that children hold a very special place with me.  If you do nothing else today, bring love to your children and all children.  They are good.  They are the future.  We are beyond hope, but they are our hope.  If we teach them well, they will make their world better than ours.

My first thought was to include Handel’s Messiah at the end of this post, but we aren’t quite ready for it.  Instead, I think the video is more appropriate for today.  We cannot stop the world from turning and doing whatever it must do, but we can spend one day trying to bring peace to our own lives, our families and those around us.  Merry Christmas and peace be with you.