Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from  the veneration due to its sacred name and origin,  

We humans have an immense appetite for complicated things, neuroscience, astrophysics and molecular biology of course, but also barely decipherable books, abstract works of art and avant-garde pieces of theatre without plot or character, all of which perhaps evoke the primordial puzzles of the universe and our own always ineffable existence within it. But our veneration for complexity can reach a most painful, time-consuming and futile zenith in one area in particular – relationships. It's here that we find otherwise discerning and hard-headed people exhibiting extreme patience, often lasting over a succession of tormented years, for what we can call complicated situations. The complexities may arise from some of the following dynamics. A beloved partner who wants to commit and surely will one day but not quite yet on account of this or that factor or not entirely because of certain psychological fears or not conclusively or at least not without certain important caveats. They may need space, freedom or what they call a chance to explore though quite what was still not wholly clear, though we have asked them on many occasions. Then a partner with whom there are a lot of misunderstandings, around whom words often lose their standard meanings, around whom we may have to spend hours untangling what was truly meant and around whom gestures or deeds that we previously thought uncontentious suddenly become the occasion for major surprising aggravations. Or a partner who in principle is there for us and in theory loves us very very much but in actuality – like last week and the week before that – is constantly remarkably busy, unable to respond to our texts, out with their compelling friends or concentrated on their always extremely demanding job. Or a partner with whom we sit up late at night on many occasions with a pad and paper to hand attempting to determine where the issues are coming from, what is at play and how things might be handled before, baffled and upset, we finally have to retreat to bed a little after 1am feeling fragile and tearful.

But I'm sure I've always thought of Christmas-time, when it's come round, apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that, as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.

The political system in Mayapan, it was a marked difference from the Classic period, where you saw a political system that was dedicated to veneration of the king's royal lineage.

Some Qingming rituals and ancestral veneration decorum observed by the overseas Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore can be dated back to Ming and Qing dynasties, as the overseas communities were not affected by the Cultural Revolution in mainland China.

his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and

Li is usually translated as ritual and refers to rituals associated with Chinese religion, most of which involve the veneration of ancestors.

Ancestor veneration, animism, and polytheism were labeled as superstitions that had to be uprooted.

Piety means respect, or even veneration.

There's been an enormous veneration, almost a worship of instinct.