| Vol. 3 No. 25 December 11, 2008 |
| HMONG NEW YEAR BEGINS AND ENDS WITH A HARVEST Happy Holidays! |
| These are very interesting times that we live in. I would imagine that the world has always been filled with problems that I have only become more aware as I have travelled along the road of life. I remember back to my childhood and the world seemed to be such a safe place to be. Of course there was the threat of nuclear war, but that was a distant abstraction in my real world filled with fun, adventure and school. Christmastime was especially magical as the days before Christmas seemed like an eternity and we baked and decorated cookies and the television programs had yuletide meaning and the Christmas commercials had not yet become overwhelmingly obnoxious. And when I was married and had small children those many years ago, Christmas was still a joyous time. My son, stepdaughter and I would drive out into the country after Thanksgiving, trudge through the snow and chop down our Christmas tree and hurry back home where steaming cups of hot chocolate awaited us before we trimmed the tree. And there were cookies to be baked and decorations to be put up. Every year, we would play the game of hiding the kids’ presents, which more than likely they found well in advance of Christmas, and staying up until the wee hours wrapping them after the kids went to sleep. Oh how they tried to stay up and I would beg them to sleep. And then at 7 a.m. — they knew it was a no-go until then — the kids would scream out that the presents were under the tree. And we gathered round and opened them one by one. Santa got the credit for the presents long after they discovered who Santa was. Between our Christmas and the Christmas at grandma’s and grandpa’s, Christmas was a three-day affair filled with gift giving and merriment. Who would have thought that those days would not last forever? And still the world seemed to be a safe place to be in. But now Christmas and the world seem to be different. It’s hard to peel back the commercialized coating of the Christmas holiday to reveal the deeper meaning inside. My kids have grown and dispersed to all edges of the world. My mom and dad have gone on to a better place and it hardly seems necessary to put up Christmas decorations anymore. They remain in storage closet where they have gathered dust over the years. On some levels, the mystery and joy of Christmas are for young children, and young children walk my halls no more. This Christmas, we face so many troubling issues from wars and terrorism abroad to the fear of terrorism domestically and an economy that lies in shambles. It is a time where the commercialism of Christmas won’t be strong enough to carry the season. While for the past 40 years we have been able to indulge ourselves and isolate ourselves with our riches, this Christmas, people must look past the material to a deeper meaning of Christmas, a sense of salvation and redemption. Christmas has always been about hope and promise. While Christmas, for many of us, has become superficial and hollow, our current circumstances ought to lead us to look within our spiritual selves and find in each other the meaning of Christmas in a world that has become so tenuous. It is each other and not all of the materialism in the world that makes life worth living. And it is our relationships and not the money that truly define our worth. Christmas is a time that calls for us to rise above the beastly isolation of our lives to recognize the humanity of those who are near and far. I firmly believe that if we do not take the message of Christmas — indeed the messages of all of the world’s religions — to heart, we shall surely perish. Unless we rise above our own brutish self-preoccupation and parochial interests, we shall cease to exist as a race — the human race. While this Christmas will be unlike any other that I have celebrated in my 56 years and I will spend much of it alone, I am also filled with a sense of hope, that we can arise above our circumstances, each and every one of us and do the unimaginable. I believe that we can arise above the past and treat each other with respect. I believe that we can work out our differences for the common good and allow each of us regardless of our own personal characteristics to flourish, to learn, to grow so that each and everyone of us can be a part of the solution to global warming, to hunger, to poverty, to disease. It begins in each of us to have faith and belief. And once we are well-rooted in our faith and belief, we can move mountains and do the unimaginable. While things may be bleak in our lives today, we must have hope for the future. We can be reborn and feel confidence for the future. That is Christmas to me now. I wish true happiness to all of you, my readers, and that you have faith. |
| Reflections/Jonathan Gramling The meaning of the times |
