Now let the music play, the choir sing, lift our hearts up on magical wings. Feet dance, our spirits twirl. Let good feelings reign, love’s passion unfurl.

And so I approach the Christmas season wishing all our readers peace and prosperity of spirit going forward into the New Year. In this world of tumult and unrest, we must look to ourselves and become the purveyors of justice and compassion. Let our sorrows not consume our great ability to forgive and raise our spirits and those of all. We are light bearers, possessed of grace, who seek justice, the ability to ennoble our world with kindness, the best we can become.

That’s my prayer going forward. That’s my prayer for those who would take control of the affairs of men. It takes no special talent or intent to know we live in a changing and challenging world. We can look back through time and see how each epoch had its moments of peril, of tragedy. We wonder if the world really hasn’t changed that much in essence, hasn’t really learned anything. We’ve simply created a far vaster playing field.

Our great body of knowledge fills libraries and whole buildings and is represented throughout the culture. The known world is imminent and prescient. The great talents of its citizens find expression and fruition. We have choices at our fingertips, information bombarding us 24 hours a day.

But that’s not everybody. Not all information reaches people with the same impact or impressions. The larger, grander the scale becomes, the more we retreat to our worlds defined by cultures, personalities, power politics, religions, accessibilities. This Earth is a universe of distractions, delights, lessons, trials and tribulations, but splendid in its very magnificence. What do we really know of it?

Right now I’m reminded of my days in Paris from the summer of ’67 through the spring of ’69. The French have an innate sense of grandeur. Also of history. The Olympics showed Notre Dame Cathedral encased in scaffolding with heroic reconstructions from the fire. This week we saw the opening and dropped jaws seeing how magnificently they had preserved and renewed this hallowed treasure.

The many days I spent passing it, several occasioned viewing inside or lounging on an outdoor bench near the Seine reading. Wife Jane and my sister Marilyn and I had been there just months before the fire. The Olympics showcased Paris of today, gleaming and haughty as ever. On one escapade in 1968 my sister, French husband Michel and I snuck up the stairway to the south tower and climbed out on the roof, I with my alto recorder and the others tapping rhythms on the roof tiles.

The sense of history one gets, of time itself, is immeasurable. I joined in the student rebellion in May 1968 and saw history in the making just as many did here in The States’ student movements. We strove for values and respect for creativity and human life. Prenez vos reves comme vos realites, the slogan on the wall said. “Make your dreams your realities.” That has stuck with me my whole life.

Christmas ’24 seems like a turning point. Is it different from all the others? Probably not to anyone who has been paying attention. The transformation of our democracy into a demagoguery of sycophantic suck-ups and visionless parasites doesn’t make it seem like the “dreams” part of the equation played any role.

In the theater, these characters are all headed eventually for a ride over Niagara Falls, barrels not included. We won’t know if they can actually swim until much later. We know there’s one who can’t.

They started the ride upstream where illusions included delusions. But destiny only decides who hits the falls when minds are blind to the dangers. All the pundits swirl above in their choppers like large anthropomorphic wasps phoning in their predictions as the historians in ivory towers nearby watch through binoculars. Quite a spectacle.

Surrogates George and Mary are watching the telecast while trimming the Christmas tree. Handel’s Messiah is on the turntable. George noted, “Perhaps ‘And the Trumpets Will Sound’ aria will accompany the critical moment. Irony may be the only thing that defines the future.”

Mary proclaimed, “Christmas reminds me that sacrifice for the glory of the divine has always been hard for many to grasp. Yet many have gone forth and risen. It’s just a metaphor. We’re in charge of the best parts of ourselves to be the model that’s true.”

“God made it a maze at times so we would have to put out effort, I think, do the work of transforming ourselves into a conscious being. It’s as easy or as hard as we make it,” George concluded. “The world is always on the tip of transformation.”

Let us all raise our hearts and our voices: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Alan Harris lives in Shelburne Falls.