By Carol Fisher-Linn
No matter your age, ‘tis the season for Christmas wishes, dreams, and hopes. If you still mail greeting cards, how many times have you written, “we wish you all the best in this holiday season.” Or “here’s hoping all of your Christmas dreams come true.”
Many of the holiday songs you hear are filled with nostalgia and yearning for something better. Amy Grant, in her song, “A Grownup Christmas List” sings about dreaming of “no more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, and time would heal our hearts. And everyone would have a friend, and right would always win, and love would never end.”
Years ago, Bing Crosby reminded us, “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Josh Groban, in his song, “Believe” reminds us of the magic of Christmas … “When it seems the magic slipped away, we find it all again on Christmas Day.” At any age, we still want to believe in the magic of Christmas – of the day and of the season.
But listen to a radio program or turn on the television, any day, any time, even now at Christmastime, and you will surely be bombarded with more negativity than you can handle. Alas, we are not only divided – we are broken – almost impossibly broken, with so many pieces there is no chance for repair without it being noticed.
Perhaps we ought to consider applying the philosophy of the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi to our brokenness. My daughter introduced me to this repair style when I had a large ceramic rabbit that would not let me repair it in the standard way because of its size and amount of breakage. I guess it was something like America – large and broken in many places. Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with thick lacquer dusted or mixed with precious metals like powdered gold, silver, or platinum. When the object is repaired, the precious metal seams are raised, highly visible, and glistening, creating an entirely new nature for the once-broken item. Not the same, it becomes an entirely distinctive entity – still its original self, but changed, and stronger, displaying the breakage and repair as a part of its history, rather than disguising it. Remember, this isn’t the first break in the American dream. Yet, with every rift we have mended and grown stronger.
Here’s where hope comes in. Hope for a better world. Hope for a kinder world. Hope for a more promising future. Divided as we are, hope is one of the very few things we Americans still have very much in common. Buffalo Bills football fans all understand the almost primeval feelings of hope. It is real. It is visceral. Hope lives, not only in the “Go Bills’ slogan, but in our guts and in our dreams and in our hearts and in our very souls. Hope keeps us going, year after year, when we are at our lowest of lows, always hoping for the best, even against snowstorms or -1 degree temperatures. As 18th Century poet, Alexander Pope said in his 1732 An Essay On Man, “hope springs eternal”. Jonathan Cain of the rock group Journey remembers calling home in despair when things were looking their worse. His dad always said, “don’t stop believing or you’re done, dude.” So, he toughed it out and instead, Journey wrote a song about that. They found and celebrated hope.
Christians find hope in the Christ Child, but hope is not reserved only for Christians at Christmas. Hope exists for everyone, for people of all faiths, or for people of no faith. Here’s the good news: hope, defined as a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen can be shared by each one of us. You and I can give hope to the person we smile at on the street or store, to the recipients of the food pantry or fund raiser we donate to, to the local business, school, church, or charity we support, to the neighbor we help, to the family member or old friend we call to say hello. That is why, all over the world every soul in invited to join in the celebration of Christmas. No matter your faith, may you joyfully embrace and share the essence of the Christmas season: Love, Forgiveness, Togetherness, Laughter, Memories, Family, Tradition, Food, Friendship, Joy and yes, HOPE. Have a Merry, Joyful, Hopeful Christmas season. (And hug an Alpaca.)