Life rarely announces itself with fireworks. Most days arrive quietly, carrying a mix of minor irritations and unexpected mercies—annoyances that nick the soul and blessings that steady it. We all live somewhere in between.

Between paper cuts and promises.

It seems like every December, I hear someone whisper like they’ve uncovered a scandal: “Did you know some Christmas traditions came from Yule?”

They say it like they’re warning me not to eat convenience-store sushi.

But the truth is a little less dramatic and a whole lot more beautiful.

Where I grew up, folks could turn a simple sentence into a linguistic rodeo. We had a way of trimming words, bending syllables, and letting the elongated vowels do the heavy lifting. So when somebody asked, “What were you thankin’?” you had to lean in and decide whether they meant thinking or thanking. 

Most of the time? It was thinking.

But today, I want to flip that familiar phrase and ask you straight up:

Over this past year… for what were you thanking?

They taught us something in private pilot school that never left me: the Venturi effect. Narrow the passage, increase the velocity. Speed rises, pressure falls. And in that sudden drop of pressure, fuel can freeze even when the outside air isn’t all that cold. Strange, isn’t it? You tighten the space, and you reveal a condition you didn’t even know was there.

Life does the same thing.

Most recently in America, a young man in his prime was cut down in cold blood. His life ended not quietly, but in a brutal spectacle: thousands sought shelter while others watched him bleed like a sacrificial animal, offered before their eyes.

Why? 

Because he believed “A” truth? 

No. Because Charlie passionately stood for an absolute truth. 

Many of us caffeine devotees navigate the early morning fog like knights on a relentless quest for the Holy Bean. Others might be teetotalers, blissfully unaware of the magic contained in roasted, ground, liquid gold. But whether you’re a sipper or skipper, we all seem to need some kind of lifter to start the day.