Peace on Earth?

Today I feel sick. Nauseated with grief over the hideous, senseless shooting in an everyday American elementary school. Memory is still fresh with another shooting closer to home, just 20 minutes away in that shadowy theatre in Aurora. I think of an acquaintance whose husband died last week of a brain tumor; they have two small daughters. And of Jack's classmate Eden, who is in the hospital struggling to survive as her body rejects her heart transplant. My stomach lurches, too, remembering black-haired Guatemalan children crawling over shards of glass and reeking trash to find glue to sniff or scraps to sell.

We all carry these stories, these griefs and losses, both intimate and global.

Like all of you, I want to grab my tender children and my loved ones and crawl into a hole somewhere. I want to beat my hands at the doors of heaven, at the gates of our collective human heart--if we even have one. If you believe in God, these are dark times. If you don't believe in God, these are dark times. How hard it is to cling to faith in God's goodness, human decency, that of God in everyone, civic virtue.

In our own little corner of the world, we have flu to contend with and a trip to get ready for and holiday cards to mail and hats to knit and homemade jam to deliver to those precious teachers who keep our children safe as best they can. It all seems painfully trite in the face of such deep depravity, of mental and spiritual illness and political paralysis.

Meanwhile, for Christians like me, it's the season of Advent. A time for waiting in the dark, hushed and pregnant with longing. Christmas is just around the corner. How do I celebrate God's love for the world at a time like this?

Isaiah says that a little child shall lead them. Today my Jack will lead me. At his winter concert, all his classmates wore red carnations and sang out loud and strong for their friend Eden. The next day, Jack told me he wanted to make something for her, something he knew she'd really like. Here's what he came up with:

"American Girl Doll Coloring Book," made by Jack

Now this may seem trivial. It's not going to end gun violence, or solve world hunger, or heal cancer. But it is something. And often, it is something that means everything. Inaction is the fuel of oppression. Perhaps we need to recognize the evil and darkness in our world, not so we can lie down and wallow in it, but in order to let its ugliness pierce our souls and waken our hands to kindness.

To you and yours, wherever you are in this wide world of ours, I wish you strength. Our love can never be perfect and there will always be gaps and rends in our relationships. But may we all find the courage to be vehicles of love, to offer grace and tenderness right where we are, to whomever crosses our paths this holiday season.

Emmanuel. God with us. In a rank stable, in the ragged holes in our deepest hearts: Emmanuel. May there be peace on earth and goodwill to all. Shalom.