A Christmas Wish and the Journey Home

Some years ago, a man I worked with at the New York City Board of Education who I greatly respected told me that most people just want to live their lives peacefully and with dignity. Over the years I have found Jack Wengrow’s words ring true no matter the era or current fashion.

Today we live in turbulent times when living peacefully is not always easy or even possible. Times, when our most humanitarian inclinations notwithstanding, the dignity of the individual is often trampled. Perhaps that is the way it has always been.

At this magical time of year, despite all that has transpired in the world, in my life and in the lives of family and friends, I still feel a sense of hopefulness. The music and tidings of joy proclaim a prevailing spirit of goodness and kindness that will ultimately transform the world.

Jesus, like the Buddha, was a light unto the world who transcended the limitations of religion. He spoke to the side of us that longs for peace and righteousness to prevail so that no one has their dignity violated. Jesus taught a better way, as did the Buddha. To live with compassion and love for one another isn’t a Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim ideal. It is a human ideal.

I hope one day we can embrace each other as pilgrims, and respect and honor the unique journey that each of us is on. We are all moving toward a distant star in our hearts, and there are many ways to reach it; there is no one true way. Despite all our differences, it may be that we are seeking the same thing after all, and when we discover it, we will have found our way home.

The French novelist Marcel Proust wrote, “We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, for our wisdom is our point of view from which we come at last to view the world.”  Wisdom, as the “Serenity Prayer” reminds us, is our point of view that enables us to recognize the difference between the things we are able to change and those we cannot.

My Christmas wish is that all the citizens of earth will one day live their lives in peace and with dignity. For family and friends, as we continue our respective journeys in 2018, may we have the courage to change the things in our lives and in our world that we are able to change, the serenity to accept the things we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Namaste and Merry Christmas!