Saturday, December 24, 2011

To my online friends

If you've been following this blog, or following my posts on Facebook, you don't need another summary of the year.  You know it has been long, and busy, with some highs and some lows.  You know that I sometimes struggle to focus on the positives.    Most of the time I am successful.

Some of you have had more than your share of difficulties this year.   Several of you have lost a  beloved life partner, a parent or grandparent.  Some of you have children whose ideas of sharing the holidays is different from yours.  Some of you are hard hit by the state of the economy.  Some of you are away from home, from the familiar, from those you love.  It's a hard time of year to be alone.  An yes, it is all too possible to be alone in a crowd.

Some of you are celebrating -- new paths, new perspectives, new views, new relationships.

Some of you celebrate other winter holidays at this darkest time of the year.  Significantly, all those seasonal holidays speak of the contrast between the present darkness and the promise of light to come.  My personal choice is the Christian version of this darkness/light celebration, the season of Advent culimating in Christmas, the celebration of Christ's birth.   Intellectually, we know shepherds are not in the fields of the Middle East in December.  But the Advent Wreath, like the Menorah, begins with a single candle, only to glow with its brightest promise of hope and  light at the end of the season, in the very darkest days of winter.  The sun rising on the day of the Winter Solstice finds the keystone in circles of standing stones like Stonehenge or Calanish.   Light will follow, literally and figuratively.  Whatever our belief, the promise is  there. 

Keep your faith.
Look to the light.
Merry Christmas!
Don't forget to pray.......







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