The Christian calendar is quite wise in placing the feast-day of the Slaughter of the Innocents today,  just immediately after the Christmas celebrations. It faces into the reality of this world, with the sad turns which we cannot understand, and the fact that we can lose that which is most important to us, due to factors which are unexpected or outside of our control.  It is the opposite to the distracting tactics which we see scattered all through the modern understanding of this holiday.

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world

without being saddened very often.

Erich Fromm

photo Mstyslav Chernov

Underaged refugees in a camp located at the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, 30 January 2016.