As the holiday season deepens, and more of my FB and Blog friends begin looking forward to family time and fewer distractions by political ranters like I have been known to be, I am going on a sort of hiatus...for the next month, I will not be posting about a certain person who is borrowing 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.. for some indeterminate time.
I will post and blog and HuffPo about the greatness of our country, the lovely people who make it as great as it is (or desperately wants to be), and of the ideals and values (such as I see them) that bind us and and lead us.
I am no Pollyanna. I don't think any of us should ignore the rumblings and disconcerting crackings of the fault lines beneath our feet here at home, or the lightning bolts illuminating the storm clouds gathering across the sea. Those things will continue to be on my mind, as I hope they will be on yours--but in a measured tone. Not as a jeremiad, but as a whispered presence. I believe in vigilance in times of trials, and I believe in always speaking truth to power.
But this is a season of turning to others, of outstretched and giving hands, of affection and joy, of tenderness and understanding, of charity and blessing. Of course, every day should be such a time...but here, now, I just want to address and play a part in a season that seems to encourage each one of us to be a polished facet of something brilliant and loving and magical.
I have many friends here on FB who are deeply committed to their respective faiths--including faiths that do not see Christmas through the brushstrokes of Currier and Ives, or in the glow of colored lights and children's sugar-plumed faces. My hiatus will be a time to reach out beyond the boughs of holly and say سلام (salām), friede, صلح (solh), paz, rauha, pais, 平和 (heiwa), 'Éyewi (Nez Perce), Мир (mir), 和平 (hoà bình), שלום (sholim), and, simply, Peace to one and all. (my apologies if I have gotten any wrong...and there are still so many left unsaid. Feel free to add your own).
I also have many friends who do not see the holiday as a time of worship, but as a time of humility and gratefulness and of promoting happiness. Whatever your conviction, your guiding beacon, your inner spirit, I know you will share it this holiday season as you do every day.
And, finally, to those of my friends for whom the holiday is a reminder of loved ones no longer here, of suffering and pain of loss, of daily trials that no angel on a tree or carols sung in the falling snow can possibly assuage, I send you my love and affection and my deepest hope that your foundering worlds will one day be righted, that your hurt will one day be healed, that your battered spirits will find a safe harbor. It's a little gift--this message of hope--but it's all I've got.
Peace.
