A Humanist Ho, Ho, Ho!

January 2008

'Tis the season to be jolly, and drink some hot cocoa,
And snuggle up before the fire and watch the glistening snow.

Our wreaths are hung, our lights are lit, our houses are aglow,
And children all are listening to hear that ho, ho, ho.

Parties go on all around. Libations freely flow,
Midst food, and friends, and kin, and fun beneath the mistletoe.

Norman Rockwell's captured just such scenes as these, although
He's also painted poorer folk who aren't in this tableau.

We are among the fortunate whose breaks in life we know.
We have no cause, however, for braggadocio.

No man is an island, as John Donne wrote long ago.
We're lucky to be where we are, and a heavy debt we owe.

By sheer good luck we're Americans and living now, you know,
In this land of liberty where happiness can grow.

For this we thank our founding fathers for reading Diderot,
And Locke and Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

We thank the brave explorers like John Glenn and Marco Polo,
Who opened up the heavens above and the world here below.

And we thank all those before us who heeded "Westward-Ho,"
And settled here in Utah instead of Idaho.

We thank the great historians who've informed us apropos
Of Greece and Rome and Persia, too, in ages long ago,

And all the great scientists like Newton and Galileo,
Who've explained the world to us. To them we say "Bravo."

Orators and statesmen like the great Greek Cicero,
And Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato,

Painters and sculptors like the Italian Donatello,
Composers and singers like the sublime Caruso,

Playwrights and authors like Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Essayists and poets like Edgar Allan Poe,

Our public schools and patient teachers, both which need more dough,
Our servicemen who keep us safe to freely come and go,

Doctors and, dare I say it, the lawyer Clarence Darrow,
And even sports heroes like Babe Ruth and DiMaggio,

And let's not forget our chapter, where ignorance we outgrow
And which was nurtured from the start by a man you know as Flo,

All these and more enrich our lives; to them a debt we owe
That we cannot begin to pay the interest on, and so,

Because we all live better than old kings in a chateau,
We owe it to the future to make this world a place of show,

A world in which the struggling Jane and ordinary Joe
Can live a life surpassing ours, the best we can bestow.

There is no need tonight to be like Woody Allen, though,
Who can't be happy if anyone has misery and woe.

So as we party here tonight and bask in winter's glow,
I'll wish you all the very best and a hearty "Ho, ho, ho."

--Earl Wunderli