The all-mind consuming season is upon us. Holidays and their long-standing traditions slam our senses with lights, smells of pine and delicious foods, crowds, and consumer frenzy.
We visit family and friends, bringing songs to which episodes from our childhood are firmly attached. Winters frozen ground looks beautiful adorned with lit trees, and candles illuminate insides of homes, linking and replaying ancient miracles. These images of holiday moments may fill you with both nostalgia and anticipation for the warmth and wonder of the season.
Yet, how many people look with sadness at the coming days, going back to holidays past, into the present, and even the future? The truth is that holidays also bring dread, new worrying, and cold reminders of lacking, and more potential for disappointments.
If we are to truly celebrate the season and allow it to transform us as coming days promise they can, we must pull back the curtains of traditions and look at the very reason we chose these days to immortalize. A tiny baby born to poor parents led us to profound wisdom and a single word that dares us to defy despair: hope.
Luminous light burned, glowing over; it’s built in natural energy to light the way to hope for persecuted people. This year it is my dream we all see past the glitter to the true reason we make way for these days: The promise of hope, given and received, and the miracles that hope inspires.
