5th Day of Christmas

ON THE FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME, fiiiiiivveeee gooolllddeenn riiinnnggssss. Finally, something that doesn't have feathers. We assume the rings are pure gold or at least 14K otherwise this lover is looking pretty stingy. Although, he got his love something that doesn't have to be fed and cleaned up after. He got his love something she'd actually appreciate. Or does she?

My father is involved with the jewelry business. Around the holiday, business picks up significantly. We see a number of lost men fall through the doors on the verge of a breakdown because he has no idea what to get his wife. In general, wives like things that sparkle. In order for a man to mess up a jewelry gift, he would have had to pick something so far from her liking it would be nearly impossible to get it wrong. The male species has been able to trump the odds, such as putting a man on the moon, and buying his wife a bad gift is no exception. And sure enough, December 26th sees men returning with their wives to get what they really wanted- they returned a toaster oven and got a diamond necklace. At least the wife gives him some slack since he at least attempted to get the right thing!

Symbolically, the five rings supposedly represent the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Genesis is cool because it accounts for Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, and even the great Joseph and the technicolor dream coat, but the stories get old. Exodus is cool because it accounts for Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. But after the 20th chapter, we find that all Israel is is a bunch of Jewish people in the middle of a hot desert, so they complain. The other three books are straight up boring. They have laws, accounts, a census or two. I would rather read Great Expectations backwards that read those three books in a day. In retrospect, these five books are anything but golden to the average reader.

But beneath them, we see a series of stories that are commonly overlooked. They are stories that, when put in context, are mind boggling. We just don't have the patience for them. We don't have the patients for a lot of things. There are things in this world we hate waiting for, like food and standing in line at the theater. But they are good things, we just choose not to see the beauty beneath them. So maybe the fifth day of five golden rings is just that. We must see the beauty of this world beneath its crusty outer layer and see the beauty that lies beneath. I think when we do, we won't see a world of muck and mire, but five golden rings. Here's to the fifth day being about the beauty beneath.

KB