Traveling the familiar road

(Photo courtesy of formulanone@creativecommons.org)

Interstate 71 connects the top and bottom of Ohio, bridging the gap between Lake Erie to the Ohio River. For 252 miles, it meanders through busy cities and remote cornfields.

My life has played out on the two-lane road. I’ve traveled major sections of it more than any other highway – nearly 200 times, I’d estimate.

The first trip came when I was only 16 and visited Ohio University for a tour. A year later, we packed my stuff in the family station wagon and headed down the interstate again, bubbling with anxiety and anticipation on the trip from my hometown of Cleveland to my new dorm address in Athens.

During my four years there, I retraced that route many times, visiting home for holidays and breaks. After graduation, I got a job in Cincinnati and made the four-hour trip regularly.

I traversed it for baptisms and birthdays, weddings and funerals, reunions and goodbyes. I drove it as a young single person, a married person, a parent with two kids in the back, an empty-nester, a retiree.

The road hasn’t changed much – it’s expanded to three lanes in places and the rest stops have been upgraded, but it’s much the same.

By contrast, I’ve changed from trip to trip. That ribbon of road has been a backdrop for my life’s journey.

People on the go

It’s almost cliché to talk about our journey, but it’s one of the most common themes of our lives and our faith traditions. Scriptures are full of stories about people on the go: leaving for a promised land, heading toward a manger.

Our faith traditions remind us we’re meant to be people on the move. As Rachel Held Evans puts it: “Scripture doesn’t speak of people who found God. Scripture speaks of people who walked with God. This is a keep-moving, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, who-knows-what’s-next deal, and you never exactly arrive.”

It’s important to travel well, and our faith traditions offer advice.

First, travel light.

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus tells his followers to hit the road and share the good news of love, reconciliation and healing.  He tells them to carry no money, food or traveling bags. Instead, they’re to stay wherever they’re invited and eat whatever they’re given.

Same applies to us. We need to travel light, especially in our consumer society where accumulating, storing, maintaining and showing off our stuff is a priority.

Travel light

We also need to be careful not to overpack other stuff: grudges, insecurities, judgement, expectations, ideas that things should be a certain way. It slows us down and gets in the way.

But why should we travel light? This brings us to the second piece of advice: Travel together.

When you don’t carry much, you’re more open to people helping you along the road. And that’s the whole point! We’re not individuals accessing a common road; we’re one traveling party heading down the road together.

This is the heart of true religion: Love one another and care for everyone because they are your neighbor. We’re traveling together.

Travel together

The famous parable describes a person traveling alone who sees someone bleeding by the side of the road and stops to help this fellow traveler. The Samaritan and the injured stranger complete the journey together to a place of healing.

As Ram Daas puts it: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

A final bit of advice: Travel openly.

Make the journey with an open mind and an open heart. Pay attention to those around us – don’t just walk past. Embrace the mystery, the uncertainty, the surprises.

Travel openly

Don’t fixate on the destination. Let the journey take us places we wouldn’t choose. Remember, it’s about the traveling, not the arriving.

Bethlehem wasn’t a final destination for any of the characters in the Christmas stories. It was a stopover where they met, had an encounter that changed them, and then headed for the road again with a different outlook on everything.

Same for us. Each stop, each encounter, every step should bring us closer to the truth of who we are, connect us with others, and lead us together into the heart of God, which is ultimately where the road wants to take us.

A ride home on Christmas eve

It was dark. We were hungry. Mom decided we would eat without my dad.

I was 6 years old that Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogi. My mom, my younger brother and I had been waiting for dad to get home so we could eat as a family.

The waiting part was no surprise.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought home many demons from the battlefield.

The demons emerged during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with co-workers. The co-workers would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink, trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. It was dark. We were hungry. We ate without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We got new PJs for Christmas every year, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited. Mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A light in the darkness

Finally, two headlights illuminated the darkness. We looked out the front window. We could see a car, but it wasn’t my dad’s car. There were two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad. Someone had given him a ride home.

The driver helped my dad walk up the driveway. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light. The man who drove my father home? A black man.

I mention his race because it’s relevant. We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no black people in my neighborhood. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing. There was much racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat – her way of saying thanks. He had done enough already and could have just left, but instead he graciously accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it’s the only time in his life that he had pierogi and mushroom soup.

After he ate, the man wished us Merry Christmas and went off into the night.

Embodying the light

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

The man could have found any number of legitimate reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life – more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad recognized that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and courageously transformed his life, dealing with those demons in a healthier way. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

One choice changed everything

At Christmas, we hear readings about light shining in darkness and God with us in our messiest and darkest moments, never giving up on us. The Christmas message both comforts us and challenges us to be the light and embody that Love more fully into the world, just as the man did for our family on a very messy and dark Christmas eve so long ago.

I never saw the man again. I’m thankful for what he did and for what he taught me. He showed me how race and other differences need not divide us. Love knows no boundaries. And light is there for us in the darkness, trying to shine through us.

He could be alive today, totally unaware of how his kindness that long-ago night is still remembered and treasured. Every Christmas, I pray for him and for the courage to be a little more like him.

Maybe you could, too.

Found by Christmas

As the clock approached midnight on Christmas eve, we’d gird ourselves for the one-block walk to church on a cold Cleveland night.

Burrowed into our coats, we’d wrestle galoshes over our shoes and head into the wintry night. The air was cold and dead, the sky clouded and lifeless. The night air was frigidly silent.

There, at the end of the block, was our church, fully illuminated for a midnight service. Light streamed through the stained-glass windows, a colorful beacon in the darkness.

Drawing closer with each step, we’d hear the choir filling the night air with beautiful song. We’d start waking faster toward it.

Arriving at church, we’d pull open the old, wooden door and warmth would wash over us and provide a shiver of comfort and joy. The church was decorated with pine trees, and that wonderful smell – mixed with incense – greeted our cold noses.

In the midst of all the darkness and stillness and emptiness, Christmas had found me again.

The church was filled with immigrants who were missing people and places and parts of their former life in what they called the old country. On this night, they felt the ache of separation and the loss of what had been.

The familiar words and hymns brought them comfort and joy. Christmas found them, too.

 I’m guessing we all can identify with those immigrants in some ways tonight.

Because of Covid-19, this Christmas eve is unlike any we’ve known. We’re separated from loved ones and missing parts of the life we once knew.

We can all identify

And yet, Christmas comes for us tonight just as it did for those immigrants huddled in the church. Just as it has for nearly 2,000 years no matter the circumstances – pestilence, war, depression.

Christmas meets us where we are and reminds us who we are. In beautiful and familiar words, it tells us again what’s real and true in our lives. It tells us of our worth and our life’s work.

Christmas reminds us of a love embodied not only in a baby but in each of us as well. An incarnate love that seeks to reconcile us and the world through each of us.

A love that gives us purpose and meaning. A love that will always have the last word.

Covid-19 won’t get the last word. Nor will our sad refusal to deal with it. Nor will hatred or fear or divisiveness or anything other than love. That’s the reassurance of Christmas: We are saved from and safe from all those things.

We’re saved from everything that isn’t love. Saved from even death itself, which cannot break any bond of love.

For God so loves the world.

So, let there be joy in the world!

Let us be warmed by that great light in our darkness. Let’s hear the joyful music in the air and breathe in deeply that sweet scent of Christmas all over again.

Tidings of comfort and joy. Let nothing you dismay! Love and joy come to you. Chains shall be broken, all oppression shall cease. Go tell it on the mountain.

Come one and all, joyful and triumphant.

Triumphant!

Reminds us who we are

We’d sing “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” at the end of our Christmas eve service each year. Then, we’d bundle up and head back out into the cold for the walk home.

Only now, the cold had lost its bite. Those wonderful, sweet smells of Christmas lingered in our noses. And the beautiful music hung in the air and in our hearts, just as it has every year for centuries.

No matter where you are or what you’re feeling tonight, remember to listen for the music. It’s in the air, inviting us to sing along.

(Image courtesy of Adam Cohn https://www.flickr.com/photos/96142515@N00/37146385212)

A ride home on Christmas eve

I was 6 years old. It was Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogi. My mom, younger brother and I were waiting for my dad to get home from work so we could eat.

No surprise that we were waiting.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought demons home from the battlefield.

Those demons tended to emerge during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with co-workers. They would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink, trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. And hungry.

Mom decided we’d eat without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We got new PJs for Christmas every year, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited some more. It was getting late. Mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A surprise visitor

Finally, headlights illuminated the driveway. Looking out the front window, we saw a car that wasn’t my dad’s. There were two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad. Someone had given him a ride home.

The driver helped my dad walk up the driveway. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light and got a huge surprise.

The man who drove my father home was Black.

We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no Black people there. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a Black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing and there was much racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat as her way of saying thanks. He could have left — he’d already done more than enough — but he graciously accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it’s the only time in his life that he had pierogi and mushroom soup.

Then, off he went into the Christmas eve night.

He saw that he could help, so he did

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

The man could have found any number of reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life – more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad acknowledged that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous, confronted his demons, and courageously transformed his life. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

One act changes everything

I never saw the man again. I’m thankful for what he did and for what he taught me. He showed me how race and other differences need not divide us. Love knows no boundaries.

He might be alive today, totally unaware of how his kindness that long-ago night is still remembered and treasured. Every Christmas, I pray for him and for the courage to be a little more like him.

Perhaps you could, too.

A ride home on Christmas eve

I was 6 years old on that Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogies. My mom, my younger brother and I were waiting for my dad to get home from work so we could eat.

The waiting was no surprise.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought demons home from the battlefield.

The demons tended to emerge during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with co-workers. The co-workers would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink. Maybe he was trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. And getting hungry.

Mom decided we’d eat without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We got new PJs for Christmas every year, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited some more. It was getting late. Mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A surprise visitor

Finally, headlights illuminated the driveway. We looked out the front window. We could see a car, but it wasn’t my dad’s car. There were two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad. Someone had given him a ride home. Not the first time.

The driver helped my dad walk up the driveway. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light and got a huge surprise.

The man who drove my father home was black.

We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no black people there. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing. There was much racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This black man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat – her way of saying thanks. He accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it’s the only time in his life that he had pierogi and mushroom soup.

He saw he could help, so he did

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

The man could have found any number of legitimate reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life – more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad recognized that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous, confronted his demons, and courageously transformed his life. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

One act changes everything

I never saw the man again. I’m thankful for what he did and for what he taught me. He showed me how race and other differences need not divide us. Love knows no boundaries.

He might be alive today, totally unaware of how his kindness that long-ago night is still remembered and treasured. Every Christmas eve, I pray for him and for the courage to be a little more like him.

Maybe you could, too.

Grief, joy and a mom’s ceramic reindeer

My mom had multiple sclerosis and was limited to a wheelchair for her last 15 years. When she couldn’t navigate the house anymore, she moved into a retirement apartment and made new friends.

The apartment offered social activities, including a pottery class. My mom joined and made gifts for family and friends. Each Christmas, we’d receive new ornaments and holiday figures.

She made the Rudolph figure above. She was particularly proud of it. She kept it and placed it next to the small tree in her living room each year. When she died, I inherited it. Every Christmas since, I’ve place it next to my tree.

Holding the figure – the same one she held so tightly and painted so carefully – helps me feel connected to her. I sense her continued presence in my life.

It wasn’t always this way.

The first few Christmases after she died were difficult. Hanging her ceramic ornaments on the tree and setting Rudolph next to it made me miss her even more. It was akin to yanking the bandage off a wound that’s just starting to heal.

I felt I’d not only lost her, but Christmas, too.

Several family members and close friends are experiencing that same feeling this holiday season. They’ve lost someone or some important relationship. Entering a new year feels like closing a door behind them.

Those first years are so difficult! The pain can overpower. Joy seems elusive. There’s an overriding sense that things will never be the same, never as good.

All the talk of good cheer can get swallowed in that black hole.

As I gained distance from my mom’s death, the pain slowly subsided and made room for something else. Pain has been replaced by presence.

Pain replaced by presence

Whenever I look at the reindeer figure now, I think of all the holidays when she was in some sort of pain and yet made Christmas special for us. And now we live in her spirit and do the same for each other.

She’s still here in all of this. The circle is unbroken.

Whenever I hold the reindeer figure, I think of how she held it and put so much of herself into it. How she carefully painted the brown eyes, the long lashes and the red nose, trying so hard to get them just right.

And then she looked at it and smiled, the same way I smile when I look at it now. She put herself into that figure the same way she put herself into her family – so much careful work, so much love, so much attention to detail.

Those things never go away. They form a bond can’t be broken.

That is, after all, the Christmas message: Love is strongest of all, always stronger than hate or fear or the thing we call death. Nothing can separate us from powerful love.

Which brings us to joy.

Joy is mentioned a lot during the holiday season – joy to the world — and yet it seems so distant and alien and elusive when we’re feeling grief and emptiness. But joy and sadness aren’t mutually exclusive; they co-exist. They’re partners, in a sense.

As I’ve gotten older and experienced loss, I’ve realized that joy isn’t a feeling. It’s more of a mindset or a lifestyle grounded in the recognition that life and love endure, even when they change forms.

Joy is a close relative of gratitude and appreciation. It encourages us to step back, realize we’re still in good hands, and smile through our watery eyes.

One more thing about joy: It’s not personal, but collective. We create and share joy together.

Love is strongest of all

Joy involves helping each other through our pain. We sit with each other, hold hands, remind each other that we’re never alone. We don’t tell each other to cheer up or smile or be joyful; we simply give each other our presence.

That’s joy at work.

One of my favorite descriptions of this work comes from Francis of Assisi, who reminds us so beautifully and poetically that when we encounter hatred in someone’s heart, we bring love that can transform it.

Where there is doubt, we bring faith. Despair, hope. Darkness, light.

And where there is sadness, joy.

Not a joy that minimizes or ignores the sadness, but a joy that sits down next to it and listens to it. A joy that’s strong enough to help us through those moments and transform them.

A joy that’s expressed through something as simple as holding a hand. Or holding a ceramic reindeer.

A ride home on Christmas eve

I was 6 years old on that Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogi. My mom, my younger brother and I were waiting for my dad to get home from work so we could eat.

The waiting part was no surprise.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought some demons home from the battlefield.

The demons emerged during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with co-workers. The co-workers would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink. Maybe he was trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. And getting hungry.

Mom decided we’d eat without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We got new PJs for Christmas every year, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited. It was getting late. Mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A surprise visitor

Finally, headlights illuminated the driveway. We looked out the front window. We could see a car, but it wasn’t my dad’s car. There were two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad. Someone had given him a ride home. Not the first time.

The driver helped my dad walk up the driveway. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light and got a huge surprise.

The man who drove my father home? A black man.

We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no black people in my neighborhood. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing. There was much racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This black man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat – her way of saying thanks. He accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it’s the only time in his life that he had pierogi and mushroom soup.

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

He saw he could help,so he did

The man could have found any number of legitimate reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life – more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad recognized that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and courageously transformed his life. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

One act changes everything

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

I never saw the man again. I’m thankful for what he did and for what he taught me. He showed me how race and other differences need not divide us. Love knows no boundaries.

He could be alive today, totally unaware of how his kindness that long-ago night is still remembered and treasured. Every Christmas eve, I pray for him and for the courage to be a little more like him.

Maybe you could, too.

A ride home on Christmas eve

I was 6 years old. It was Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogies. My mom, my younger brother and I were waiting for my dad to get home so we could eat.

The waiting part was no surprise.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought home some demons.

The demons emerged during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with his co-workers. They would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink. Maybe he was trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. And getting hungry.

Mom decided we’d eat without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We always got new ones for Christmas, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited some more. It was getting late. My mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A surprise visitor

 

Finally, headlights illuminated the driveway. We looked out the front window. We could see a car, and we could tell it wasn’t my dad’s car. We could see two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad, no doubt. Someone had given him a ride home. Not the first time.

The driver helped my dad to the front door. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light and got a huge surprise.

The man who drove my father home? A black man.

Understand this: We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no black people in my neighborhood. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing. There was a lot of racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This black man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat – her way of saying thanks. He accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it was the only time in his life that he had pierogies and mushroom soup.

He saw he could help, so he did

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

The man could have found any number of legitimate reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe kill someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life – more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad recognized that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and courageously transformed his life. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

One act changes everything

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

I never saw that man again. I think about him every Christmas, though. I’m thankful for what he did.

Every Christmas eve, I pray for the man who had the kindness to drive my dad home and change my life and my family in unknowable ways. And I pray for the courage to be a little more like him every day.

Maybe you could, too.

The light in our longest night

The longest night of the year is upon us in the northern hemisphere, and I can’t wait. Not because I like darkness; rather, I’m encouraged by the turning point. We’ll start getting a little more light each day. Imperceptibly and inevitably, we’re headed in a brighter direction.

 

It’s a good reminder in this season. One of the most beautiful passages from Jewish and Christian scriptures reminds us that people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

And the light is never extinguished. It lives on through us, with us and in us.

It doesn’t feel that way in times like today. We feel a deep darkness in our world and in our society right now that we can almost taste, touch and smell. This darkness invades our souls like a damp, long, December night, bringing a chill all the way inside.

But it’s not forever. There always comes a turning point. It’s been that way throughout human history. Dark ages are followed by times of illumination and growth, both in our personal and our collective lives.

Always a turning point

I’ve experienced this darkness-to-light cycle many times. I grew up in the 1960s, a dark time when our society was divided over war, civil rights, women’s rights, religious posturing.

We had prophets, assassinations and convulsions. We wondered if everything was being reduced to rubble. Eventually, we emerged from the darkness and we grew, led by people who lighted the way. The moral arc of the universe bent a little more toward love and justice.

Now we’re back in a dark time. Massacres stain our streets, our schools, our malls, our parks, our nightclubs. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists march arm-in-arm with supporters who call them very fine people. Religious leaders urge congregants to remove their values and get in bed with politicians who do evil things to children and women.

The powerful and wealthy have descended like a plague of locusts, gorging themselves on everything. They leave little behind when they move off to some other area of our society, displaying no sense of responsibility or remorse for what they’ve done.

We feel the chill in our souls. We taste the darkness all around us.

It’s important to remember: It’s only temporary. The light is still there – dimmed but never extinguished, ready to warm and lead us all over again, if we let it.

Christians are preparing to celebrate a life that was a light in the great darkness. His compassion and healing warmed damp souls and helped people recognize how much they were embraced by a love that can change their lives and their world as well.

His message: Take this light and make it your own. You are the light of the world. You’re the candle, you’re the wick. Go and be the light. Don’t hide under a container, keeping the light to yourself.

Light the way through your daily kindness and love.

Be the light

Unlike our seasons, which are naturally regulated, our human cycles of light-and-darkness last as long as we allow. We decide whether to bring a little more light into each day by how we live, love and heal.

People of the light are those who bridge divisions, diffuse conflicts, shine a bright hope into the darkness that is never completely dispelled but can be overcome. They persist in pushing back against the forces of darkness.

In our own ways, each of us can be the bright star in the dark sky that provides others a way to navigate. We can be the rising sun that disperses the darkness for another day. We can be the fireplace that brightens the room and warms the souls of all who gather with us.

In this time of great darkness, we need to be the greater light.

A mom’s reminder: You’re never lost

One of my earliest and most vivid childhood memories involves getting separated from my mom in a department store. She was looking at items, and I got bored and wandered down to a display at the end of the aisle that caught my attention.

After a little while, I looked back and didn’t recognize my mom in the crowd of people. I thought she’d left without me.

I got frantic. I remember suddenly feeling so alone and frightened in this big place with all these strangers. What will I do?

I started to cry.

In a flash, my mom heard me and came toward me with arms outstretched. Don’t be afraid, she said, wrapping me in a hug. I’m right here. Everything’s OK.

There have been many throughout my life that I’ve had that same feeling of being alone or lost in a big, scary world. It’s like being in the department store all over again.

At this time of year, many religious faiths reassure us that we’re never alone. They remind us to listen for that voice saying: I’m right here. Always.

It’s all OK

For example, Advent is a time of remembering that God is with us. Our attention is focused on incarnation – God living through us, with us and in us at this very moment to bring love, justice and healing to each other and our world.

God is right here. Everything is going to be OK.

For me, that’s perhaps the most challenging part of faith, trusting that our Parent is with us and caring for us in every moment.

It’s easy to feel that presence at some times: when you feel loved deeply by someone; when things in your life seem to be turning around; when you’re standing on a beach or looking up at the moon and stars and you feel so wonderfully small and yet so deeply grateful to be part of something so amazing.

Those transcendent moments remind us we’re not alone.

It’s the many difficult moments that distract us and sidetrack us. Life is full of challenging and often painful transitions. We lose a loved one. A job or a relationship ends. We wake up with a lump somewhere in our body. Someone whom we love deeply is struggling with some great challenge.

How often does it feel like you’ve been plunged into a whole new universe and you don’t know what to do? Nothing has prepared you for this. Everything has been turned upside-down and inside-out.

Those worrisome moments can swallow us up. Advent – the time of Emanuel, which means God with us – reminds us that we have loving company, outstretched arms that will get us through everything.

Never loses sight of us

We’re never lost or alone, even when we’re struggling to make sense of the latest unexpected twist in our lives. As Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it: “We want to go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God’s presence.”

The Creator of love and life is present in every tear of joy, and in every tear of pain. In every breath of relief, and in every breath of fear. In every moment of clarity, and in every moment of confusion.

We’ve been done a great disservice by those who portray God as an aloof and distant being who will seek us out only if we accept some somebody’s theological terms-and-conditions, including all the fine print regulating what you can and can’t do.

That’s definitely not the message.

The message is that we have a parent who reminds us we’re never really lost, but always found. A parent who wants nothing more than to wrap us in a divine hug and throw a wild party in celebration, no matter how prodigal or self-righteous we get.

Whenever we wander down the aisle and get frightened, God opens those divine arms and says: Don’t be afraid. I’m right here with you. Always.

Even when you lose sight of me, I never lose sight of you.