Holidays can be a mixed blessing. As they make their inevitable way into our lives they often carry reminders of what was and what could have been. Sometimes our best defense is to retreat from them. That can be difficult with the Winter Holidays since their commercial side throws them in our faces.

Merry Happy Everything only happens when you buy, buy, buy! Nothing like an advertisement of a loving couple/family/community gathered around a menorah/Christmas Tree/Kwanza candelabra to make us reflect on what we may or may not have.

Some of us are having the times of our lives and to you, I say, Great! Treasure it. Give thanks! Enjoy! Soak it in.

Not everyone is so lucky. Life changes and so does the circle around the table.

One of the reasons I love celebrating the solstice at this time of year, is that it carries with it only memories of planned celebrations. But that’s how I’ve coped with changes in my life. It won’t work for everyone. And for those whose hearts are bruised or broken I send you love and comfort, comfort that someday leads to joy.

Often I’d capitalize those words, but today I left them small and homey, little comforts, little joys and constant soft love.

And I wish that with those little comforts we might salvage those holidays to become what we choose them to be, places for us to make a difference in our world, places to lift up the notion of what these holidays stand for, rather than what they’ve too often become.

If we come together in Peace, we see that there are other faces, not always smiling, who wish for Peace as well. We are not alone. There are many of us. We hope there will be more. May we choose Peace, and in that choosing, perhaps, we’ll find folk with whom we can fashion holiday celebrations that salve our hearts and slowly transform a world.

I come in Peace. I wish you Peace. I wish you Comfort and Joy. I hope that you will join me in wishing our world Peace and Quiet, Comfort and Joy. Perhaps putting the wish out there for everyone will bring the changes home… I hope so…