a plea for kindness and understanding
A Plea For Kindness And Understanding
(Or my wake-up call.)
For our beloved B, with all love and affection.
The flourish of fairy lights is in full swing. December - Hanukkah, Yuletide, Advent, Christmas - is a time of light and lights, of happily anticipated gatherings with family and friends, of festivities and feasts and of the joy and peace that come from observing favourite traditions and rituals.
Families and loved ones cluster cosily ‘round the fire, sipping egg nog, mulled cider and hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream (or do you prefer marshmallows?). Carols are played. And sung. Stockings are hung, pressies purchased, wrapped and hidden away. It is a time of abundance, but therein lies the contradiction of this special season: Abundance encompasses every aspect of the holidays - the joy and the sadness, the happy expectancy and the dread, the peace and the discord, the bounty and the paucity, the busyness and the aimlessness.
I want to share with you a lesson I learned the hard way. The excitement and anticipation are not for everyone. The paradox of this festival of light is the darkness so many amongst us are feeling - a darkness that blocks out all those twinkling fairy lights and the hope and magic they represent. This week I had a shocking and upsetting telephone conversation with a woman who Cam and I utterly adore. Despite her outward demeanour, her position of celebrated family matriarch and her family’s rich history and many happy traditions, she is suffering from Christmas dread in the worst way.
“But it seems one mustn’t judge by th’ outside. This is a puzzlin’ world.”*
Poor health, grief, insecurity, solitude, fear and stress are all obvious causes of darkness and despair. But there are inconspicuous sources too, and I think you might be surprised at the number of folks you are close to, those who are healthy, successful and happy, who nonetheless feel some degree of Christmas dread. I sure was! This is a time of year when, often hidden from us, the darkness completely swallows some of our friends and loved ones.
Strangely enough, the love and plenitude inherent in, and on display lavishly during the holidays, felt and cherished by so many of us, merely engender feelings of misery, insufficiency and inadequacy in the hearts and minds of many of our loved ones and close friends. Their brains and their hearts break under the pressure they feel.
The holiday season is rife with an anxiety born of muchness; trying to please everyone, making travel plans, entertaining, shopping, decorating, meal preparations, managing family dynamics. This is a busyness on which many of us thrive, enjoy even, but that many of us find paralysingly difficult. As you look around your inner circle, perhaps allow your holiday rituals to change a wee bit, to morph into what is required by personal circumstance, to what fits the folk around your table.
The glory and wonders of Christmas may glow abundantly all around us, but grace is what seems to be in short supply and is exactly what’s needed. Grace for ourselves, to compromise, if needed, to do what is right for us - right for our bodies and souls. Grace for our loved ones and dear friends, to withdraw if needed, to shed a tear if needed. Grace to shun the gay apparel and don the quiet, thoughtful apparel.
This holiday season, please try to listen to what is actually being said, not to what you’re expecting to hear and if you do, the finest gift you may end up giving to someone you love and cherish, will be the understanding and kindness they so desperately need to emerge from their darkness. And what a sweet Christmas assignment it is, don’t you think, to brighten the darkness for one precious person.
’Til next time, y’all…
*Mary Ann Evans, writing as George Eliot, from The Mill on the Floss, Pg. 39, Chapter III: “Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom”. This is the line that gave rise to the popular adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. Full quote: “but they’ve all got the same covers, and I thought they were all o’ one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn’t judge by th’ outside. This is a puzzlin’ world.”
The photos in this post are of Christmas Magic 2021 in Victoria and Rotary Parks and, ‘though we didn’t know it at the time, it was to be our last Christmas in Cobourg.
