Still Untitled

The 24th of December. In the coming night, as tradition wants it, Jesus Christ is said to be born, the 25th being his birthday. Lets hope that Mary has not to suffer, any mother giving birth should not. Maybe there lies a secret of  faith, in the repetition, in the understanding that a divine act happened once and is always repeated, by any man to come, by any woman who brings another Erlöser on this world. Maybe this is what theologians mean when they speak about the presence of the ransom. On the other hand, Wolfdietrich SCHNURRE (1920-1989) (Ger., Eng.) once said that redemption is a promise not honoured (ein Versprechen, das nicht eingelöst wird)*.
I came back from my trip through the War, visited places I never had heard of, and finally met my fate in the form of a Russian hand grenade on the banks of the river Düna (Ger., Eng.). Must be a very nice scenery, at least according to the pictures I found on the web. I wish I had time and money to travel, the Baltic states, and the region from the Ostsee to the Black Sea would be one of my favourite areas, roughly the East End of Europe. I would especially like to visit the Krim (Ger., Eng.) and Charkow (Ger., Eng.).
Today pictures of the letters must be taken – I tried and failed this afternoon, and do not know why. I am used to photograph originals out of churchbooks under challenging circumstances, but I have no idea why it did not work today, in a heated room with natural light. I was tense and knotted, sweating heavily, as if I’d do heavy labour. After a first glance at the pictures I thought that only some “Ausreißer”, some runaways, had gone wrong. But there were too much of them, and the pictures are deleted now. Tomorrow a professional will take care of this. My only job left is to carefully put the original letters into archival maps (“Archivmappen”) and write the correct date on them. Put it carefully in an archival box and burn a CD with the transcriptions, a register and a kind of explaining text or history.
I love my profession, and I did this job  with dedication, but I am glad that it is over.

I wish You All a happy Christmas, or a happy Holiday Season, whatever you prefer. I am not in a festive mood, I am just glad that this year is over. I am happily looking forward to the week zwischen den Jahren – I don’t know whether there is an English equivalent or translation for this. It means just the normally quiet week between Christmas an New Year. Today I found an Aldi leaflet in my letter box offering fireworks, something called “Vienna”, “Lisbon”, “Bristol” etc. … oh yeah, just bomb it, honey … Nowadays they do not just offer some rockets on a stick, but up to three crates of explosives mounted on one base – nur einmal Anzünden.  Maybe this is world economy at its finest: People somewhere in the world produce explosives, that are shipped around the world only to be sold to and blown up by other people. Absolutely useless. Well, at least it’s meant to do no harm. But basically it remains nonsensical.
Anyway, bomb or don’t, I don’t care.
Here’s some festive music.
I prefer Bells over bombs. By William BYRD (ca. 1543-1623) (Ger., Eng.). Performed by Michael Maxwell STEER.
Hope you enjoy it.

Happy Christmas. Peace, love, and understanding.

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* Der Schattenfotograf, 1978. Recommended.