Half of my inbox is Christmas, and the other half is racial tension.
It’s hard to know which way to look.
One way is so happy, so jolly, so naïve. The other is so painful it cuts me to the core. Sadly, violence at Christmas time is nothing new. My grandmother danced on a Hawaiian beach at a clam bake the night before Pearl Harbor was bombed 73 years ago this Sunday. A mere two years ago this December 14, kindergarteners were shot to death at school in Newtown, Connecticut. This year people are taking to the streets, often violently, indicting the United States with gross racial debasement. Because I am a fair-skinned American, I am granted the privilege of choosing which way to look.
I choose to close my eyes.
Not because I don’t care, but because I don’t see a solution in the superficial realm in which we live. Mountains need to move to heal this divide. Oceans need to dry up and leave us with nothing but a basin of salt to contemplate. That is not going to happen on Twitter.
We don’t need a Band-Aid to fix this problem; we need open-heart surgery.
I close my eyes because that is where to find the power, the force, the Source that can move mountains, dry up oceans, and change hearts. I close my eyes as I sit on my meditation cushion in front of a candle which burns even though I can’t see it. I close my eyes, connect with energy, and direct it towards peace. I offer not just a lip-serviced prayer, but time, devotion, and the whole of my spirit in my meditation.
Peace. Peace. Peace.
True peace is not a simple truce, but a reckoning of justice, a profound shift in thinking, a healing, a reconciliation, and movement towards love. It’s a softening of hearts, a laying down of burdens, a chance to breathe and begin anew.
I cannot move a mountain, but I will do my best to nudge us towards the miracle of peace.
After all, it is Christmas, and miracles have been known to happen
this time of year.
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