Another Ho-Hum Week?

Seems like it was another ho-hum week, doesn't it? Sure, stocks dropped a bit (-1.6%). Gold doggie-paddled in still waters. Bonds? Well, what can you say. All the talk about yields rising, or yields falling has yielded not much excitement.

Fall has settled in and will bring a shot of chill next week in these parts. Chilly now, chilly/cold then.

What about the rest of November?

Well, one of our brain trust guys says we should get a stiff drop in stocks, followed by the usual December (Santa Claus?) rally in December. Again, kind of ho-hum.

Another relatively reliable source provided an interview with a gent who took us through what he considers a potentially dramatic explosion of Tokens. If you don't know what these are - really know - check out Adam Taggart's Youtube channel. Adam's a stand-up guy whose interviews can occasionally add some spice and valuable information about markets, the economy, and...well, what else is there?

Oh, right: Life!

Adam's stuff is good, but life isn't a common theme. For the rest of us, it is, of course. So since not much is going on (or has been going on) in our markets and the economy (although the latter does appear to be grinding down a bit), it is November and therefore...

 

We're in the home stretch. Once we pass Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls, it's on to Thanksgiving, Advent and...Christmas. Voila!

Depending on your personal and business life, it's likely some combination of push and pressure will increasing mix with the secular and religious themes.

For the secular, there's Thanksgiving and then the "Christmas Season." As we know, the secular world considers the Christmas Season to begin sometime in October. That's when commercial interests begin touting their products as Christmas gifts and entice us to get in the "holiday spirit" - a tool to get us to bite on their advertising. "Holiday Music" abounds on some radio and internet stations. You know the drill.

For the religious, well that's a bit more individual. From a Catholic perspective, Advent begins right after Thanksgiving. And while we try not to celebrate Christmas long before it arrives, we do still have to attend to preparation, including home decoration and, yes, shopping for gifts, etc. Our challenge: remain recollected in the Advent discipline and spirit before releasing full-blown Christmas on - you guessed - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and throughout the real Christmas Season.

In the face of all this, the push and pressure percolates either below the surface, on it, or right in your face, depending on individual circumstance. 

One of our antidotes to facing the distractions and various challenges and difficulties that may arise as we work our way through the rest of this year is an amazing priest who served as a chaplain to his fellow Irishmen in the trenches of World War I. A website devoted to him provides almost daily selections from his diary. And from time to time he wrote about the horrors he faced in his work as a chaplain. serving in the trenches of World War I. And so we present this rather harrowing account by way of contrast to any possible distractions and difficulties we might face during this home stretch.  

“I was standing about 100 yards away watching a party of my men crossing the valley, when I saw the earth under their feet open and the twenty men disappear in a cloud of smoke, while a column of stones and clay was shot a couple of hundred feet into the air. A big German shell by the merest chance had landed in the middle of the party. I rushed down the slope, getting a most unmerciful whack between the shoulders, probably from a falling stone, as it did not wound me, but it was no time to think of one’s safety. I gave them all a General Absolution, scraped the clay from the faces of a couple of buried men who were not wounded, and then anointed as many of the poor lads as I could reach. Two of them had no faces to anoint and others were ten feet under the clay, but a few were living still. By this time half a dozen volunteers had run up and were digging the buried men out. War may be horrible, but it certainly brings out the best side of a man’s character; over and over again I have seen men risking their lives to help or save a comrade, and these brave fellows knew the risk they were taking, for when a German shell falls in a certain place, you clear as quickly as you can since several more are pretty certain to land close. It was a case of duty for me, but real courage for them. We dug like demons for our lad’s lives and our own, to tell the truth, for every few minutes another iron pill from a Krupp gun would come tearing down the valley, making our very hearts leap into our mouths. More than once we were well sprinkled with clay and stones, but the cup of cold water promise was well kept, and not one of the party received a scratch. We got three buried men out alive, not much the worse for their trying experience, but so thoroughly had the shell done its work that there was not a single wounded man in the rest of the party; all had gone to a better land. As I walked back I nearly shared the fate of my boys, but somehow escaped again, and pulled out two more lads who were only buried up to the waist and uninjured. Meanwhile the regiment had been ordered back to a safer position on the hill, and we were able to breathe once more.”

The men’s resting place that night consisted of some open shell holes. “To make matters worse,” writes Fr. Doyle “we were posted fifteen yards in front of two batteries of field guns, while on our right a little further off were half a dozen huge sixty-pounders; not once during the whole night did these guns cease firing.” This proximity not only contributed an ear-splitting din but added considerably to the men’s risk owing to the occasional premature bursting of the shells. In spite of these discomforts and the torrential downpour of rain, the men slept out of sheer weariness. “I could not help thinking,” says Fr. Doyle, “of Him who often had nowhere to lay His head, and it helped me to resemble Him a little.”

(source: williedoyle.org)

Whatever we have to deal with to manage our home stretch will likely be far from anything Father Willie faced during this terrible battle. 

Certainly the farthest thing from ho-hum.