Editorial: Don't overlook the blessing of a peaceful moment
It is usually the purpose of this space to move you. To stir you to some specific course of action or at least some new or different way of thinking.
But today, it may be that you are best left to your own thoughts, your own reflections. If we have one overriding message, perhaps it is just this: take time for those thoughts and reflections.
Today, Christmas, is a day for hope and joy, and nothing should interfere with those emotions. Indeed, it should be the aim of all of us, whatever our spiritual tradition and beliefs, to consider how we make every day such a day.
This is no simple idea to contemplate while reading a newspaper, where, in print and online, conflict is a common theme.
Among the Top 10 stories of 2014 in the view of Associated Press editors, at least seven explicitly involve disputes, bloody (police killings and the rise of Islamic State, for instance) or purely political (the Affordable Care Act or immigration). Even those that, like the efforts to stop an Ebola pandemic or the advances made toward gay marriage, may be considered narratives of growing unity suggest tension and drama.
The same may be said closer to home. Many of the statewide and suburban stories we recall most prominently suggest anything but peace on earth, good will toward men. The public pension crisis. A nasty election for governor. The fight against heroin addiction. The release of more documents in the long-running scandal of priest sex abuse. Murder and mayhem from one end of the suburbs to the other throughout the year.
None of this does much to encourage thoughts of peace and joy, much less, considering the seemingly endless routine of such stories year to year, hope. And perhaps that's precisely why it's so important for us to take at least this one day a year to concentrate on the opportunities for better things, the qualities and experiences of a better world.
In editorials on Sunday and Wednesday of this week, we've reflected on themes from such a world - the urge to reach out to the grief-stricken, the stories of selfless giving that abound this time of year.
Today, we simply encourage you to view the world through that kind of lens. To remember that in spite of all the rush of the season, there is time to stop and think, to stop and feel. To consider the actions that we can take and that others around us are taking every day to move us all toward a more harmonious, more productive sense of togetherness.
On this solemn and joyous day, we are only too inadequate to the task of providing you new thoughts of peace or stirring you to new acts of kindness. We simply take this opportunity to remind you that these qualities are already there, inside you and all around you. Among all the joys that will compete for your attention today, don't overlook the blessing of a peaceful moment.
Merry Christmas.