Finding hope in dark times

Tomorrow, Dec. 21, is the solstice, the shortest day of the year. In BCE, Before the Common Era, and for all the centuries in our Common Era, people have celebrated the end of the year’s dark period and the beginning again of the coming of the light.

Leaders seeking followers for their new Christian religion piggybacked on the established communal gathering to herald the new light of the world, the hope for mankind, the Prince of Peace.

The Christians among us believe Jesus was born on Dec. 25. Wise men and shepherds came in honor and amazement of his birth. Here was God made flesh and come to Earth as savior.

What a great hope – miracle of miracles – that a child will save us. The adult Jesus would be the Prince of Peace, guiding mankind to beat their swords into plowshares and have us study war no more.

This year, 2023, has seen a dark fall in an incredibly gray and difficult year in an era of ongoing catastrophes and tragedies for those willing to stick with and look deeply and accurately at the realities of our larger world.

If only it was enough to hug our kids and drive them to their basketball games and music lessons. Maybe our children will become the hopes of the world and reach across manmade barriers to forge a peace adults refuse to attempt.

A child in a manger, homeless, on the road, his parents traveling as an imposed dictate. How could he grow into people’s savior? There are children today – this day – and pregnant mothers migrating, traveling not because they want to but because they are forced to, as the only hope for their and their family’s survival, if they can find shelter, food, water, safety for a day, for the rest of their lives.

“Unto us a child is born,” the Hebrew scriptures reads. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day multiple children are born. Is one of them the hope of the world? Every one can be, if they live, if they are nurtured, if they are loved, if they grow up in love and told that in love lies hope for the world.

In this dark time, literally in far too many ways and figuratively in many ways more, adults tell each other and their children many stories. A story we can insist on and then work to make real is how the parents of today’s children worked to build a miracle, saving all children by insisting on and working toward peace, bringing light to all children everywhere in our lifetime.