This
has been a year when at times I wished I was invisible. Maybe then, I
would have hurt less, and my heart would sink less in despair. I have
had days when I wanted to never look at a news feed, or hear another
word from NPR in my life! But one cannot live in a bubble, no matter
how much the world hurts. And we have to stay aware and awake. If we
can do just one thing to help humanity is to stay aware.
I
thought after The Holocaust, after 50 + years of Communism, after
numerous genocides and civil wars, humanity has learned. But this
year has proven that theory wrong. Very wrong.
This
year has also been a painful year, personally, but from so much pain
I have learned that we, humans, are stronger than we can ever
imagine, and that there is incredible amount of goodness and love
buried inside all of us. Sometimes it's way too deep to bring it up
fast enough, but it's there and it will eventually bubble to the top.
Stubbornly. Eventually.
I
hope all of us find the strength and the decency to find our light
tonight. I hope we find the peace, the love, the grace that the world
and our worlds need most. And I hope we all find the respect
into one another that we somehow lost this year. Even in the last
hour of 2016, I wish for all these good things and for The Light to
find our hearts and open them to goodness.
And,
in our despair and aloneness, we must also remember what Anne Lammot
says so many times over: “Grace bats last.” But she still bats.
Merry
Christmas to all!
