Christmastime

 

Christmastime.

I think about the words we repeat so easily.

Peace on earth. Goodwill to all.

They sound right in candlelight.

They belong to the season.

Still, I wonder what they demand

once the music fades.

We gather.

We tell the old stories.

We laugh at remembered moments.

There is holiness here —

love shared across a table,

warmth passed hand to hand.

And still,

someone is missing.

Each year, more chairs sit empty.

Some belong to the dead.

Others to the living -

the sick, the tired, the forgotten.

Those who move more slowly now.

Those whose phones no longer ring.

Those for whom the season brings

only silence.

I think of them when I hear the carols.

How joy can wound when you’re alone.

How peace can sound like a promise

never meant for you.

The Christmas story is not one of ease.

It begins in need.

A child born into uncertainty.

Doors closed.

Light arriving anyway -

first to those keeping watch in the dark.

If peace on earth means anything,

it lives there.

In the hard places.

In the quiet rooms.

In the choice to sit,

to listen,

to stay.

Goodwill is not a feeling.

It is a practice.

Often imperfect.

Often unseen.

So, this season, remember:

the light was never meant to be kept.

It was meant to be carried -

into hospital rooms,

into lonely apartments,

into conversations without answers.

Christmastime does not ask us to fix the world.

Only to see it.

To love where love is thin.

To bring warmth

where the night is long.

That is how peace and goodwill begin.