Although the holiday season is a time for reflection and acknowledgment of love for family and friends, sometimes commercialism can make this time of year more taxing than celebratory. It’s very easy to lose sight of what the holidays represent when you spend so much time preparing for one specific day rather than enjoying the entire season and carrying that on into the new year.
And then something can happen that reminds us all of what is important and what should be cherished year round. The recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut makes us all shudder at the randomness of violence in our society and the fleeting nature of life.
Such a heinous event, so close to the holidays, also brings us closer together by the very nature of its inconceivable consequences. The stories of heroism that inevitably come forth as the days pass, the rallying together of a broken community, the outpouring of both grief and compassion from a country suddenly bound together by innocence lost defines the basic goodness we are all capable of; we just forget to show it sometimes.
Once 2013 begins another year of hard work, opportunities both achieved and missed and day-to-day anxieties will dominate our time. That warm comfort the holidays provide will linger and then fade – it’s the nature of things. As John Lennon opined, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”
But it doesn’t always have to be that way.
This holiday season has been tempered by heartbroken contemplation but it should in no way leave us in disarray. It is times like these when family and friends should express the love that’s always there but often hard to convey. Though it should never take a holiday to remind us of this, sometimes it does. And it should never take a tragedy to bring us closer together but this season, sadly, it has.
So as the holidays approach this year say a prayer for all those affected by recent events and for those less fortunate trying to find their way. Embrace your family and friends with words of love and comfort if only to remind them that their importance in your life knows no bounds.
My very best to you and yours,
Doug Masters
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