"People in my neighborhood are feeling guilty about it being Christmas. They are taking down decorations," said Jeannie Pasacreta, a psychologist who volunteered her services and was advising parents struggling with how to talk to their children. Link here.
And the ripples of sadness continue.
For some reason, a moment in the book I read this past week connected itself to this sadness.
"Augustus Walters," I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love. (John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Kindle 2419)
If those beautiful little first-graders, whose faces are now appearing to us on news outlets, could speak to us now, I have no doubt that they would tell us taking down Christmas is the last thing we should be doing.
Regardless of your particular interpretation of Christmas, the birth of the Miraculous or simply a time when people want to be nicer to one another (the lowercase-miraculous nonetheless), it is too brief a moment in our lives, no matter how much time we may be given. To shorten it, or take it down, or refuse its warmth, to give in to grief and suffering that overshadows that shining moment, is to forget, after we have all shuffled off this mortal coil, that love wins.
Love Wins.
It's why, throughout the ages, sentiments like this echo into eternity.
Yet in thy darkness shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn.
Let there peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a [weary]* world." (Merchant of Venice V.i.101-102)
And the ripples of sadness continue.
For some reason, a moment in the book I read this past week connected itself to this sadness.
"Augustus Walters," I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love. (John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Kindle 2419)
If those beautiful little first-graders, whose faces are now appearing to us on news outlets, could speak to us now, I have no doubt that they would tell us taking down Christmas is the last thing we should be doing.
Regardless of your particular interpretation of Christmas, the birth of the Miraculous or simply a time when people want to be nicer to one another (the lowercase-miraculous nonetheless), it is too brief a moment in our lives, no matter how much time we may be given. To shorten it, or take it down, or refuse its warmth, to give in to grief and suffering that overshadows that shining moment, is to forget, after we have all shuffled off this mortal coil, that love wins.
It's why, throughout the ages, sentiments like this echo into eternity.
Yet in thy darkness shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn.
Let there peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a [weary]* world." (Merchant of Venice V.i.101-102)
*with apologies to Will, Portia says "naughty" but I prefer the "weary" that Roald Dahl inserted here.
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