On Ash Wednesday ... I think of Christmas

While at Mass this morning for Ash Wednesday, for some reason Christmas entered my mind.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of the Lenten season, a season of prayer and repentance. But it leads us up to Easter, which is with Christmas one of the two most recognized "Christian" joyful holy days. They are days of celebration and rejoicing.

And then I thought of my Christmas stories and poems. I'd written them over a number of years, sometimes as a verse to go in our Christmas cards, or as a story to sent out to others for Christmas. One group of poems was even composed for a "bad haiku" contest - which, I won (if "won" the right word!).

They are a mixed bag. I like several of the stories - one set during the civil war, one a first Christmas biblical fable, one about a ghostly Santa - and a few of the poems are decent ("A Mall Santa's Prayer," for example.

I'd compiled them together in a file, thinking some day to revise them, polish them, and try to publish them as a collection. Four stories, some 20 short poems. There's also a partly written story I could finish.

This collection is one of several I've considered. One collection would be of short poems - haiku, clerihews and limericks. One would be of slug poems. And the Christmas collection.

They all have their pluses. There's also drawbacks. Some of the stories and poems might still be publishable separately. Do I pursue individual publication - or do I just go ahead and put together one of the collections for Christmas this year? This summer would be the time to prepare any one collection.

Thinking about this is certainly much more fun than grading papers.

Pax et bonum