Within Our Reach

I am so excited about the Holiday Season! Thanksgiving was a blessing with my parents, children, and friends around the table. I can't say it was the "best ever", Kera wasn't home. Our house is blessed with love! We are having a party today, A Christmas Party, to thank all the wonderful friends and family who have supported Jean and I in our adventures throughout the year! For me, it is a wonderful time of year gathering with friends and family. Yet, I know for some, Christmas is a reminder of strife and loneliness. During this holiday I don’t want to forget that not everyone is as fortunate as me. Since Thanksgiving I have tried to be very aware of all I have and aware of the gifts that others bring to the world that I may not see. Hopeful that the spirit of the holidays can last beyond the celebrations.

Sharon Miller, a friend of mine, wrote a reflection for the Kirkridge website about Christmas. Her words reinforced that we may not look closely enough to see the light that shines in the person right next to us. She writes poignantly about the meaning of the word Christmas and how we celebrate Christmas today. She pondered her experiences growing up as the child of a missionary in India and her present day encounters. Sometimes we miss the sacred in the ordinary. CarrieNewcomer, in her song, Where You Been, describes a Saturday in the park where she “….  saw Jesus on talking shop, with Buddha at the Starbucks, [I saw] Gia and Ganesh, doing double Dutch in the park, and Mohammad was throwing popcorn to the pigeons and the sparrows. And all us crazy holy hungry ones still believe in something better...”. 

Something better is within our reach. Wondering and wandering through this holiday I want to be aware of the angels right here. The little Buddha crying in the grocery store, the children pushing your patience, the lonely people with no place to go for the holidays. I want to be thankful for all the different people who make up this amazing world. I dream of a place where the kindness of strangers buying gifts and food for the hungry and the homeless– doesn’t end with the holiday season. I hope that long after the tree and the lights come down we are kind and giving to each other. I long for a place that honors the sacred and the holy in each of us; I pray that we all have the patience and the courage to see the good (and God) in ourselves, too.

Today I am thankful for the grace and goodness of the many amazing people who cross my path. The journey twists and turns. Christmas is about more than the celebration. During this holiday season may we all hold each other in the light and try our best the keep that light shining all through the year!