Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Magic of Believing--Guest Blogger Jim Harold


Jim Harold is the host of The Paranormal Podcast. I had the honor of being one of Jim's guests a few months back. I love his shows and had asked Jim to be a guest blogger on my site. He wrote this lovely piece and although Santa is back home at the North Pole resting up for next year, I thought that it was still an appropriate piece for the New Year. What's more magical than being given a fresh start? Enjoy.....

Jim Harold is the host of The Paranormal Podcast and Jim Harold's Campfire. His home on the web is http://jimharold.com

In a recent episode of my Campfire podcast, we talked to a listener who had a strange incident involving the Easter Bunny! Well, sort of...you'll need to listen to the episode to understand but the story did get me to thinking. Why
do adults, even in the back of their minds, hang on to some type of belief in what are obviously mythological characters like Peter Cottontail and Santa Claus?

For example, my daughters decided last St. Patrick's Day that they were going to build a trap to catch a leprechaun. I, being 39 years old with essentially two jobs (these shows plus my “day job”), a mortgage, a wife, two kids, a dog and a graduate school degree on the wall, thought all of this was very quaint and cute.

However, for a moment I caught myself thinking what if they caught
one...granted, it was just a few seconds of fleeting thought -- but it was there.
This mania heightens about this time of year. I could probably start a “Santa Anonymous” club for former believers in the Big Guy, read on.

This logical lapse is particularly prevalent for me at Christmas, the most special time of year in our home. I am a sucker for anything Christmas. And, apologies to those who feel otherwise, but it will always be Merry Christmas for me, not Happy Holidays. It's Christmas damn it!

Whether it is the decorations, presents, or listening to Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” and catapulting me into some kind of retro, smoking jacket, eggnog drinking time warp, it seems like maybe magic could happen just that one special night a year. On more than one occasion, I have found myself on December 24th thinking like a child again – almost believing that Santa is
making his flight...and folks I am not crazy far from it. I am one of the more practical people you'll ever meet. But, at Christmastime I make the late, great Bing Crosby look like a Yuletide abstainer.

So why do so many of us cling to these wishes for magic? I just think that it is these creatures connect us to the innocence of our childhood. Most of us imagine them chasing pots of gold, delivering eggs of all colors of the rainbow or shuttling gifts around the planet at warp speed and secretly, very quietly, when no one is looking we smile because at some level we still want to believe. And, maybe for just a second, just that precious moment we say to hell with logic, responsibility and adulthood and we do – we believe again. I know I do, I hope you too can always spare a secret moment to believe.

Since 2005, The Paranormal Podcast has been the podcast that goes bump in the night with a serious look at the unknown! An iTunes Top 25 Science Audio Podcast.-Jim Harold's Campfire is the show where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary experiences!-

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Websites- http://jimharold.com/
http://paranormalpodcast.com/
http://paranormalplace.ning.com/

1 comment:

Sara Humphreys said...

Thanks for being my guest blogger Jim. I particularly enjoyed the bit about the smoking jacket.
Happy New Year!!!

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